When it’s time to get serious, the Fayetteville-Manlius cross country teams do so with a force rarely seen in any other high school sport in Central New York.
So when the Hornets ventured to Baldwinsville’s Durgee Junior High School course on Wednesday for the CNY Counties League championship meet, it swept the girls and boys championships once more.
Not only did F-M’s state Class A no. 1-ranked girls prevail with a perfect score of 15 points, leaving runner-up West Genesee (64 points) and the field far behind them, it did so while achieving the fastest team Speed Rating in the nation this fall.
Sophie Ryan led the top-five F-M sweep as the junior covered the Durgee course in 17 minutes, 29.7 seconds, nearly nine seconds ahead of freshman Claire Walters, who was second in 17:38.5.
Another Hornets junior, Palmer Madsen, finished third in 17:46.8, comfortably ahead of ninth-grader Phoebe White, who gained fourth place in 18:00.1 as a third F-M junior, Rebecca Walters, needed 18:05.7 to gain fifth place, nearly 10 seconds ahead of Liverpool’s Jenna Schulz (18:15.2) in the fifth spot.
In all, F-M runners nabbed 10 of the top 25 positions. Keita Paden, in a clocking of 18:58.9, was 12th, two spots ahead of fellow senior Reilly Madsen (19:06.2) in 14th place.
Alex Villalba, in 19:18.8, beat out teammate Christy Berge’ (19:25.4) in 17th place as Haleigh Pascual was 25th in 19:56 flat. Emily Cook, F-M’s top sophomore, finished 29th in 20:16.7 as Maya Chiesa gained 31st place in 20:22 flat.
It proved much closer in the boys CNYCL competition, but state Class A no. 2-ranked F-M, possessing five of the top 13 finishing times, earned 41 points to fend off state no. 8-ranked Liverpool (52 points) and host Baldwinsville (59 points) to finish in front.
Individually, senior Patrick Perry finished in 15 minutes, 35.7 seconds, putting him in third place behind Liverpool teammates Stephen Schulz (15:23.8) and Ty Brownlow (15:26.0), but having far more help than Schulz or Boatman did.
Junior Ben Otis began the Hornets comeback by grabbing sixth place in 15:59.4, while senior Jack Boltman needed exactly 16:12 to gain seventh place, each of them just behind the Warriors’ Josh Hickmott (15:54.8) in fifth place.
But it was sophomore Matt Tripp and senior Joe Walters clinching F-M’s league title, as Tripp, in 12th place (16;25.7), and Walters, in 13th place (16:27.0), each were well clear of Liverpool’s fourth and fifth runners, who were Emil Videman (19th in the team standings) and Cullen McLaughlin (25th in the team standings).
Elsewhere for F-M, Garrett Brennan made his way to 20th place in the team race (22nd overall) in 16:41.1, with Max Perry getting to 22nd in the team race (26th overall) in 16:52 flat as Eli Capri was 30th in 17:00.8.
Everyone on the Hornets now settled in for another 10 days of work before making the short trip to Chittenango High School for the Section III Class A championships on Nov. 5. The girls Class A race starts at 1:40 that afternoon, with the boys Class A race wrapping up the slate at 2:50.
East Syracuse Minoa, who will take part in the Class B sectional race at Chittenango, finished second in both of the Varsity 1 divisions during last Saturday’s John Bernard Adirondack Invitaitonal in Boonville, the boys Spartans gettinig 101 points to finish behind Marcellus (61 points) in the standings.
Nick Berg needed 17 minutes, 4.1 seconds to take second place in the individual race behind Rome Free Academy’s Davone Hernandez (16:49.6), while Jared Henry was fifth in 17:49.1. Nolan Byrd finished 16th in 18:29.5, with David Rivers 33rd in 19:08.2. Nate Castor (19:36.5) and Michael Sanders (19:55.2) were close behind.
Moving to the girls race, where ESM was again second (112 points) behind Marcellus (59 points), Marina Lopez ran to 11th place in 22:18 flat, while Sarah Tingley was 14th in 22:41.4. Julia Schug (23:27.4) beat out Isabella Talarico (23:27.7) for 21st place as Madison Carr was 45th in 24:53.2) and Mary Neff (25:26.6) was 51st.
