Verona — For much of the cross country season, Cazenovia freshman Clara Rowles healed an injury, waiting patiently to return to full strength.
Now Rowles has found her top speed – and along with plenty of valuable contributions from her teammates, it helped the Lakers rise to the Section III Class C championship.
In a tightly-fought sectional meet last Saturday at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School, Cazenovia, with 56 points, emerged victorious in a 10-team battle, edging out Jordan-Elbridge, who finished second with 59 points. Clinton was third with 88 points.
Rowles made the 2014 state championship meet as an eighth-grader. Now, a year later, she’ll have company with her fellow Lakers as they travel to Monroe-Woodbury with the happy memory of an exciting sectional battle with J-E where the work of Caitlin Clonan and Mya Walters helped deliver a victory.
The individual race turned into a duel between Rowles and J-E’s Abby Gugel. And Rowles nearly kept pace, finishing in 19 minutes, 41.4 seconds, just behind Gugel, who won in 19:37 flat.
Meggie Hart, Cazenovia’s top runner for much of the season, made her way to fifth place, the sophomore crossing the line in exactly 20:47 as J-E’s Theresa Dristle finished sixth (21:01.6), leaving the two sides even in points.
Putting J-E back in front, Mary Elizabeth Dristle finished 13th (21:58.5), but Cazenovia senior Adrien Owens kept her side in the mix by finishing 17th in 22:07.7, one ahead of the Eagles’ Madison Daly (22:14.1) in 18th place.
Now, Clonan and Walters made their move. Sticking close to each other, Clonan finished 21st, in 22:23.8, while Walters grabbed 22nd place in 22:25.1.
Clonan and Walters, along with Whitney Denison (27th, 22:48.1), finished ahead of J-E’s Maggie Dejohn in 31st place (23:08.6) and, and that nine-point difference between the Lakers’ and Eagles’ fifth runners accounted for more than twice the final margin.
continued — Cazenovia also finished eighth among 17 sides in the boys sectional Class C meet with 239 points, while Marcellus (67 points) beat Adirondack (82 points) for the team championship.
Here, the Lakers’ Jon Marecek just missed reaching the state meet. The sophomore finished in 17:39.7, seventh overall, but sixth among individuals outside of the winning Marcellus side, Marecek just one spot out of advancing – or, more accurately, 2.3 seconds behind Holland Patent’s Chris Celecki.
Elsewhere for Cazenovia, Tony Koppers took 52nd place in 19:22.9, while Ian Marshall got 56th place (19:27.2), one spot and 0.3 seconds ahead of Nick Barna (19:27.5). Jacob Wells was 80th in 19:59.1.
Also at the sectional meet, Chittenango’s Mike Capeling earned his own trip to Monroe-Woodbury as one of the top five individuals in the boys sectional Class B meet outside of first-time team champion New Hartford.
Capeling finished fourth, in a time of 16 minutes, 55.8 seconds, and is part of the Section III All-Star side that includes Carthage’s superb brother tandem of Noah and Sam Affolder, plus East Syracuse Minoa’s Matt Young and Cortland’s Andrew Boyce.
Other than Capeling, the Bears only managed a 10th-place finish in an 18-team field. Phillip Abell was 34th in a time of 18:41.4, while Willy Blanding was 54th in 19:11 flat. Grant Czarnecki was 56th (19:14.4), two spots behind Blanding, as Devlin Cameron (19:35.4) edged out Austin Spiridilozzi (19:35.9) for 74th place.
Meanwhile, the Chittenango girls team finished ninth out of 15 teams in its sectional Class B meet. McKenzie Dombroski led the Bears, getting to 41st place in 23:02 flat, while Hayley Foran was 46th in 23:20.4. Devin Gordon was 50th in 23:26.6, ahead of Sydney Bennett (24:40.8) and Kaleigh Barrett (24:55.6) at the line.
