Even with Julia Willcox making her way to fifth place in a tough and competitive field, the Skaneateles girls cross country team could only earn a sixth-place finish among 10 sides during Wednesday’s Onondaga High School League Liberty division championship meet at Long Branch Park in Liverpool.
Navigating the difficult 3.1-mile Long Branch course, Willcox finished in 20 minutes, 1.2 seconds. Two Cazenovia runners, Meggie Hart (19:37.3) and Clara Rowles (19:48.0), finished atop the standings as Westhill-Bishop Ludden teammates Liz Kessler (19:57.0) and Haylei Coolican (19:58.5) were third and fourth, respectively.
As a team, Skaneateles picked up 130 points, just behind Jordan-Elbridge (124 points) in terms of earning a top-five finish as Westhill-Ludden, no. 10 in the state Class B rankings, held off state Class C no.2-ranked Christian Brothers Academy, 43 points to 61, for the team title.
Natalie Condon gave the Lakers a 17th-place finish in a clocking of 21:28.6, just ahead of Maddy Brogan, who was 21st in 21:42.9. But no other Skaneateles runner finished in the top 50, though Chloe Metz got 55th place in 24:39.6, just ahead of Georgia McSwain (24:46.8) and Nicole Derosa (25:28.4). Hannah Atkinson (26:35.1), Katherine Carlile (27:32.8) and Addison Gremli (30:45.2) were further back
Moving to the boys portion of the OHSL Liberty meet, Skaneateles, with 305 points, finished 10th in the 12-team field, far from the battle at the top where state Class C no. 4-ranked Marcellus (49 points) edged Chittenango (53 points) for the top spot. Calvin Blackwell led the Lakers as he finished 48th among team runners, and 50th overall, in a time of 19:04.8.
Ben Kringer was 61st in the team standings in 19:43.3, just ahead of Nick Paciorek (19:44.3) and J.W. Simmons (19:45.9) as Alex Wulff (20:13.5), Ben Blackwell (20:14.0) and Tyler Lewis (20:15.2) were part of another pack ahead of Tony Dirubbo (20:29.6), Joe Capozza (20:41.0), Connor Gell (20:44.2) and Alex Vanriper (21:04.1).
