Boys and girls alike, the Jamesville-DeWitt cross country teams proved impossible to top, for East Syracuse Minoa or anyone else, during Tuesday’s Onondaga High School League Freedom division championship race at Central Square.
Five days earlier, on Oct. 13, J-D’s boys team had lost head-to-head to Fulton, but in the larger-scale league meet the result was different, with the Red Rams earning 54 points as Fulton, with 90 points, was third behind host Central Square (87 points) and ESM had to fight hard to finish fourth with 111 points.
The individual race belonged to J-D’s Patrick Dye, who tore to the finish line in exactly 17 minutes, three seconds, nearly half a minute better than ESM’s Nick Berg, who was second in 17:31.4, while Berg’s teammate, Jared Henry, finished fifth in 18:11.5.
Where J-D got in front was with a trio that included Luke Hobika, who finished ninth in 18:32.6, and Fidel Martinez and Kaleel Boykins as Martinez (18:33.5) beat out Boykins (18:34.2) for 11th place. Then Alan Gao clinched the victory by taking 21st place in 18:52.6 as Ahviere Reese was 24th (19:02.8) and Nick Mannion was 29th (19:25.1), ahead of a group that included Chris Blust (19:32.1) Adam Louise (19:34.1) and Mac Tuppe (19:35.3).
Just behind this group, ESM’s Nolan Byrd made it to 35th place in 19:38.5, while David Rivers was 39th in 19:56.7. Michael Sanders needed 20:24 flat to finish 45th, just ahead of teammates Nate Castor (20:32.5) and Michael Nesci (20:40.7).
Meanwhile, J-D’s triumph in the girls part of the OHSL Freedom meet was expected, since the Red Rams owned the no. 5 state Class B ranking, and with 24 points J-D easily pulled away from host Central Square (67 points) as ESM, with 101 points, settled for fourth place, just like the boys Spartans did.
Hannah Butler, in a winning time of 19:56.5, was nearly a minute head of Central Square’s Eva Keohane (20:45.6) in second place, and the Rams ultimately placed six runners in the top nine.
Sophia Vinciguerra was third, in 21:23.5, with Abby Palin fifth in 21:51.3. Megan Brown was seventh in 22:31 flat and Lily Dougherty, in eighth place (22:32.1), rounded out the scoring as Jessica Spina gained ninth place in 22:42.3.
As if that wasn’t enough, six more J-D runners had top-30 finishes, led by Amelia Gilbert, who was 12th in 23:05 flat. Abigail Leavitt (23:42.6) beat out Alexandra Street (23:49.6) for 16th place, while Olivia Budelmann (21st, 23:57.9), Ayla Erwin (24th, 24:11.0) and Samantha Aitken (30th, 24:48.6) followed.
ESM got its best run from Marina Lopez, who finished 11th in 22:58.8. Sarah Tingley gained 15th place in 23:27.7 as Julia Schug made it to 26th place in 24:22.5. Mary Neff was 34th in 25:19.8 and Madison Carr (25:23.5) followed in 35th place.
Another league meet took place for the OHSL Liberty division teams on Wednesday at Long Branch Park, and that included Christian Brothers Academy, no. 2 in the state Class C girls rankings, who finished second with 61 points behind state Class B no. 10-ranked Westhill-Bishop Ludden (43 points) at race’s end.
Lea Kyle ran to sixth place in 20:15.9, with Cory K nox seventh in 20:20.9 and Deja Jones eighth in 20:40.5, but they trailed Westhill-Ludden’s Liz Kessler in third place (19:57.0) and Haylei Coolican (19:58.5) in fourth place as Cazenovia’s Meggie Hart (19:37.3) and Clara Rowles (19:48.0) went 1-2.
Each of the remaining Warriors’ place finishers – Alaina Kenny (11th), Kylie Nowicki (13th) and Maura McAnaney (16th), plus Maddie Nowicki (18th), finished ahead of the Brothers’ Bri Pucci, who was in 19th in 21;34.7 as Lucy Person got 24th place in 24:00.9.
No one finished in front of CBA’s Dominic Morganti in the boys OHSL Liberty race as, in a time of exactly 17 minutes, 10 seconds, Morganti held off Cazenovia’s James McPherson (17:17.0) for the individual championship.
Despite Morganti’s win, CBA finished seventh out of 12 teams because none of Morganti’s teammates got close to his effort. Will Bianchi did the best, finishing 26th in 18:25.5 as Riley Nash got 28th place in 18:29.6. Zach Medicis (19:06.9) and Duncan Brickner (19:23.3) were further back.
While J-D was triumphant, so was Fayetteville-Manlius as it completed a clean sweep of both of their regular-season slates with impressive wins at Baldwinsville, where it will return next week for the CNY Counties League championships.
For the state Class A no. 1-ranked girls Hornets, who won 15-49 over the state no. 22-ranked Bees, Sophia Ryan led a top-six sweep, finishing in 18:06 to get clear of Claire Walters, who was second in 18:20. Phoebe White got third place in 18:47.
Rebecca Walters made her way to fourth place in 19:02, with Palmer Madsen (19:27) and Reilly Madsen (19:35) also head of B’ville star Justus Holden-Betts, who settled for seventh place in 19:36. Three more Hornets followed as Keita Paden was eighth in exactly 20 minutes, ahead of Alexis Villalba (20:22) and Haleigh Pascual (20:27).
It wasn’t quite the same in the boys meet, but F-M, holding the no. 2 state ranking, claimed a top-four sweep, with Patrick Perry at the forefront, that proved enough against state no. 13-ranked B’ville and led to a 19-36 victory.
Perry finished in 15 minutes, 53 seconds, well clear of Garrett Brennan, who got second place in 16:33. Brennan had to fight off Ben Otis, who finished third in 16:36, and Jack Boltman, who was fourth in 16:39.
Austin Bolton, in a fifth-place time of 16:45, led a Bees charge that included Cameron Morrissey (16:52), Joe Licameli and Ben Timmons (16:58 each) in the next three spots, but F-M’s lead was insurmountable as Max Perry took ninth place in 17:01.
