Full rosters from each of the Skaneateles cross country teams would descend upon Liverpool’s Long Branch Park to compete in Wednesday’s Onondaga High School League Liberty division championship meet.
On the girls end, the Lakers finished fifth in the seven-team field, earning 100 points, with Westhill-Bishop Ludden holding off Cazenovia, 43 points to 60, for the top spot.
Individually, Skaneateles junior Julia Willcox had a superb race, covering the Long Branch course (a past Section III championship venue) in 18 minutes, 51.4 seconds, putting her fifth, just behind Cazenovia’s Clara Rowles (18:49.9) for fourth as Jordan-Elbridge’s Abby Gugel won in 18:11 flat.
Finan Malcolm also had a top-20 finish, getting to 18th place in 21:01.8, while Natalie Condon finished 24th in 21:14.5. Morgan Dodds also ran well, making it to 27th place in 21:25.7, with Jillian Van Leer 41st in 22:57.3 and Catherine Carlisle (27:00.5) in 61st place.
No one on the Skaneateles boys team could match Willcox’s strong finish, with Kai Soderberg faring best, the Lakers sophomore making his way to 20th place in 17 minutes, 17.8 seconds as Hannibal’s Jason McFarland, in 15:31.4, emerged as the individual champion.
Earning 181 points to finish eighth out of nine teams (Marcellus won with 47 points), the boys Lakers saw Joey Brillo take 31st place in 17:56.2, while Calvin Blackwell got to 45th place in 18:15.4. Steve Ciaccio was 49th in 18:19.7, just ahead of Chris Niebuhr (18:23.3) in 52nd place.
Dominic Grasso (18:41.9), Nick Paciorek (18:45.6) and Joe Capozza (18:45.6) finished ahead of Max Hall (19:05.6) and Tyler Lewis (19:21.2), while Nicola Kunz (20:56.2) beat out Chris Burgher (21:18.1) and Alex Vanriper (24:18.4).
