Julia Willcox, Maddy Brogan and Natalie Condon all gained top-20 finishes for the Skaneateles girls cross country team during Saturday’s Section III Class C championship meet at Chittenango High School.
This helped the Lakers to a fifth-place finish in a 12-team sectional field. Skaneateles had 137 points, while Christian Brothers Academy, with 59 points, edged Clinton (66 points) for the top spot, with Marcellus third (84 points) and Cazenovia (92 points) in fourth place.
Willcox led the charge, as she has all season for Skaneateles. The senior’s time of 20 minutes, 57.3 seconds put Willcox in 12th place, though it was seven spots from a berth in this weekend’s state championships at Chenango Valley State Park and far off the winning 18:59.9 posted by Clinton’s Eva Borton.
Brogan, also a senior, rose up to post a time of 21:25 flat to gain 14th place, while Condon, a junior, finished 15th in 21:29.1, barely four seconds behind Brogan, but more than two minutes ahead of the rest of the Skaneateles pack.
Freshman Georgia McSwain led the next charge, getting to 47th place in the team standings (51st overall) in 24:03.4, two spots ahead of sophomore Nicole DeRosa, who was 49th among team runners and 53rd overall in 24:14 flat. Sophomore Chloe Metz had a time of 24:59.7 for 58th place in the team standings and senior Katherine Carlile finished in 28:24.7.
An hour later, the boys sectional Class C race was run, and Skaneateles, showing its improvement throughout the season, was 10th in a 14-team field, earning 228 points as Marcellus (57 points) pulled away for the team title and CBA’s Dominic Morganti was the individual champion in 16:42 flat.
Freshman Ben Kringer and junior Tyler Lewis ran together to lead the Lakers, as Kringer was 36th among team runners, and 37th overall, in a time of 18:54.9, just three-tenths of a second ahead of Lewis (18:55.2) at the finish line.
Senior Calvin Blackwell gained 48th place in the team standings (50th overall) in 19:14.4, while fellow senior J.W. Simmons was two spots back, posting 19:17.6. Sophomore Nick Paciorek went 19:39.7 for a 58th-place team finish as seniors Ben Blackwell (19:54.2) and Joe Capozza (20:40.2) followed.
