Even a superlative effort at the Sept. 28 McQuaid Invitational in Rochester and a rise to no. 2 in the state Class A rankings could spare Liverpool’s boys cross country team from defeat the next time it competed.
In last Tuesday’s match at West Genesee, the Warriors could not keep up with the no. 12-ranked Wildcats, who ran an inspired race and prevailed by a 15-38 margin.
Connor Buck and Alex Christensen each finished in 17 minutes, 59 seconds, while Ben Petrella had a time of 18 minutes flat. Each of them trailed a strong pack of WG runners, as Will Randall won the race in 16:53, Jack Erhard finished in 17 minutes flat and Nate Conroy (17:03) was third.
As this was going on, though, Liverpool’s girls cross country team had the exact opposite result, rolling past West Genesee 20-35 despite the Wildcats’ Laura Leff earning the individual victory in a swift time of 19:02.
Nearly a minute behind Leff, Abby McNamara made her way to second place in 20:01. Morgan Mahoney got third place, in 20:08, while Juliana Basla took fourth place in 20:24.
In fact, the Warriors swept the second through sixth finishing positions, with Maia Henry (20:54) and Morgan Chewning-Kulick (21:02) crossing the finish line before WG’s second competitor, Maria Matkowski, got seventh place in 21:10.1.
While that was going on, Cicero-North Syracuse pulled off an impressive sweep over visiting Baldwinsville at Oneida Shores, winning 20-39 on the boys side and 27-32 on the girls side.
Even though the Bees’ Jack Martin won the boys race in 16:21.6, his side was still recovering from a hazing investigation by the school that led to several suspensions.
As a result, the Northstars kept its top runners together, and got all the points it needed. Colin Greenseich, in a time of 16:27.1, finished second, while Andrew Bearkland was third in 16:35.2.
Paul DeGennaro, in 16:36.8, claimed fourth place, with Chris Hannan fifth (16:43.4) and Eric Bowen (17:20.4) claiming sixth place. Joe Tricarico also ran well, getting to ninth place in 18:04.2, with Brian Traub (18:07.5) in 10th place.
Though the girls meet had teams at full strength on both sides, C-NS still managed to prevail, led by Jacqlynn Halstead, whose time of 19:24.2 allowed her to pull away from the B’ville trio of Marissa Lathrop (19:40.9), Rachael Miller (19:57.4) and Mia Bolton (20:25.5).
The Northstars also swept the rest of the top 10. Jilliann Norris, in fifth place in 20:31.5, led that pack, with Madison Kolakowski sixth (20:43.3) and Taylor Parry (20:47.6) in seventh. Lauren Carr took eighth place in 20:58 flat as Madison Gross (20:59.1) and Savannah Stevens (21:23.2) made her way to 10th place.
Not stopping there, the C-NS boys would also prevail Saturday at the Tully Invitational, earning 43 points to defeat Central Square (60 points) and a state no. 1-ranked Fayetteville-Manlius squad (73 points) missing its top runners, Bryce Millar and Andrew Berge’.
Greenseich took third place among individuals in a time of 16:48.4, with Bearkland gaining fifth place in 16:50.1. Hannan, with a time of 17:01.1, earned eighth place as Bowen was 13th (17:31.1), just ahead of DeGennaro (17:37.7) in 14th place. Tricarico (18:01.6) beat out Jared George (18:03.0) for 22nd place as Brian Traub, in 18:24.5, gained 33rd place.
Meanwhile, the C-NS girls finished second (56 points) to F-M (34 points), but saw Halstead win the individual race as, in a time of 19:39.1, she held off Cortland’s Hayley Tasselmeyer (19:42.0) for the victory.
F-M, though also missing some of its top girls runners (including Annika Avery and Alana Pearl), still had too much depth to be stopped, but Norris still finished ninth in 20:28.3, while Kolakowski got 13th place in 20:57.6. Stevens (21:19.8), Gross (21:27.7) and Carr (21:33.8) claimed the 16th through 18th spots, while Parry finished 22nd in 22:06.8.
