Even with a busy opening stretch behind them, the Cicero-North Syracuse cross country teams could not relax much.
The Northstars had another CNY Counties League match last Wednesday afternoon at West Genesee, but could only gain a split out of it, and even the boys had to sweat out a close battle to beat the Wildcats 27-30.
To start with, no C-NS individual could get close to WG’s David Leff, who won the race in 16 minutes, 39.8 seconds. Brandon Martin and Nate Poirier chased Leff and, while doing so, got the second and third spots, with Martin (17:11) just three-tenths of a second ahead of Poirier (17:11.3).
And even though the Wildcats had the fourth and fifth-place runners in Ryan Dunning (17:21.2) and Sean Byrnes (17:28.2), C-NS won it by taking four of the next five spots.
John Perperian led this decisive charge, getting sixth place in 17:42 flat. David Ware was seventh, in 17:51.1, and after WG’s Paul Stannard finished eighth, Lucas Sharron made it to ninth place in 17:58.7 and Eric Bowen (18:02.8) was 10th to clinch a Northstars victory.
Meanwhile, in the girls race, C-NS lost, 21-36, to West Genesee, as Annina Marullo made a bold run for the individual title, finishing in 19:39 flat, but still trailed the Wildcats’ Emily Young, who won in 19:39.
Two more WG runners, Carly Benson (19:50.1) and Mia Mitchell (20:02.4), crossed the line before Sarah Davis did so in fifth place in 20:34.4, and two more Wildcats followed, clinching the meet. Mia Pestle still finished eighth, in 21:25.2, as Megan Trubia got ninth place in 21:39.1.
Both of the C-NS sides would send runners to Saturday’s New Hartford Invitational.
In the boys Large School division, the Northstars finished third behind the host Spartans and Vernon-Verona-Sherrill. Individually, Sam Barber got third place in 17:04, with Michael McBride seventh in 17:52. Calvin Garnes was 11th (18:21.7) and A.J. Wells 13th (18:30) ahead of Sean Hannan (18:52), Ethan Barrett and Casey Koening (19:11 each).
For the girls Northstars, who were also third behind New Hartford and VVS, Marullo ran again and was ninth in 22:07.Emily Dembowski was 12th, in 22:35, with Leah Bisgrove 14th in 22:46 and Mia Falgitano 15th in 22:51. Iris Piagentini was 19th in 23:23 as Madeline Woods (24:21) and Shane Garner (24:29) also had top-25 finishes.
