Here was, in many ways, the biggest week of the regular season for both of Baldwinsville’s cross country teams.
It would culminate on Saturday with the 64th annual Baldwinsville Invitational. In all, 33 girls teams and 41 boys teams took part, plus runners from other schools, divided into Large School and Small School divisions.
In the boys Large School race, B’ville finished fourth, with 89 points, just behind Burnt Hills (87 points) in third place as Fayettevile-Manlius (51 points) held off Ithaca (67 points) for the team title with a 1-2 indivdual finish from Peter Ryan (14:50.9) and Patrick Perry (14:57.1).
Ryan DeLola led the Bees, getting to 13th place in 15 minutes, 47.3 seconds, two spots ahead of Austin Bolton (15:52.6) in 15th place. Cameron Morrissey was 18th, in 15:57.5, with Adam Davis (16:07.1), Andrew Olds (16:08.5), Denis Keegan (16:17.1) and Ethan Craig (16:20.8) all fitting into the 21st through 25th spots in a field of more than 100 runners.
Meanwhile, in the girls Large School race, the Bees settled for sixth place in a 12-team field, with 155 points, no one able to keep up with F-M, who had seven of the top 12 finishers, including Kaitlyn Neal, who prevailed in 16:48.6.
Justus Holden-Betts paced the Bees and made her way to 14th place in 18:50.3. Elizabeth Fawwaz finished 25th in 19:35.1, while Leah Carpenter grabbed 38th place in 20:06.5. Anna Demer (20:12.1) and Sophie Simone (20:15.7) were 41st and 42nd, respectively, ahead of Kelley Hull (20:18.5) in 45th place and Mia Bolton (20:57.3) in 58th place.
In the Small School divisions, Marcellus won on the boys side, with East Rochester’s Dawson Bathgate the individual champion in 15:10.1, and Trumansburg took the girls title, with Jordan-Elbridge’s Abby Gugel finishing first in 17:51.5.
Before all this, B’ville went head-to-head with the reigning national champions from F-M last Tuesday afternoon, and the Hornets again proved too difficult to catch.
However, the boys race did prove close, with B’ville, no. 13 in the latest state Class A rankings, posting six of the top 10 times on the board, but not quite able to upset F-M, who prevailed by a 23-33 margin.
DeLola led his side, finishing in 15 minutes, 32 seconds, getting to third place behind Perry, who won in 15:14, and Ryan, who was second in 15:28.
B’ville then swept every position after the Hornets’ Joe Walters (15:36) and Ben Otis (15:47) got the fourth and fifth spots, respectively. Davis led that group, finishing in 16:02 to take sixth place. Leland Frink got to seventh place in 16:11, edging out Morrissey and Craig, who both posted 16:12, and Olds, who had a time of 16:14.
During the girls race, won by F-M 15-50, B’ville (no. 19 in the state Class A rankings) had Holden-Betts post a time of 19:02, with Fawwaz finishing in 19:41 and Hull finishing in 20:12.
Yet F-M had the seven fastest times of the meet, all of them finishing in under 19 minutes, led by Claire Walters, who blazed to a victory in 17:37, nearly half a minute ahead of Rebecca Walters (18:02), with Jenna Farrell third in 18:05.
