In its own way, the West Genesee cross country teams emerged triumphant from its trip to Chittenango High Schook for Saturday’s Section III Class A championship meet.
Though no other squad was going to get close to nine-time national champion Fayetteville-Manlius, the girls Wildcats did win the battle for second place with 67 points to Liverpool’s 73.
What’s more, three runners – junior Emily Young and freshman Mia Mitchell on the girls side, senior David Leff on the boys side – earned spots on the Section III All-Star teams that will take part in next Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships at Chenango Valley State Park.
With F-M’s girls sweeping the top five and Claire Walters setting a Chittenango course record by winning in 17 minutes, 59 seconds, the race was for which five individuals would join the Hornets in the state meet.
WG’s top three girls ran together. Young finished in 19:28 flat, while Mitchell got a clocking of 19:33.1, exactly seven seconds ahead of junior Carly Benson, who posted a time of 19:40.1.
Together, Young finished ninth, Mitchell 10th and Benson 11th, with three other individuals in front of them – Liverpool teammates Jenna Schulz (18:53.3) and Madison Neuner (19:26.3), with Baldwinsville’s Justus Holden-Betts (19:19.0) between them. So it’s Young and Mitchell going to the state meet with Schulz, Holden-Betts and Neuner.
Elsewhere for the girls Wildcats, it was sophomore Kendall Dombroske finishing 18th in 20:34.7 and freshman Liz Morey getting 20th place (19th in the team standings) in 20:40.6 that helped WG hold off Liverpool.
Liz Baker was 28th overall, and 26th in the team standings, in 21:29.4 as Mikeayla DeJesus was 45th in 22;16.2, five spots ahead of Hannah Craybas (22:44.5) in 50th place.
West Genesee’s boys team was fifth out of 12 sides with 134 points, inches behind fourth-place Cicero-North Syracuse (131 points) as Liverpool, with 35 points, held off F-M (46 points) to defend its sectional title in large part because the Warriors’ trio of Stephen Schulz, Ty Brownlow and Josh Hickmott went 1-2-3 in the individual race, Schulz prevailing in 15:49.7.
Meanwhile, five individual spots in the state meet were on the line, and Leff got one of them for the Wildcats, needing 16 minutes, 26.2 seconds to finish sixth in the race and third among non-Liverpool runners. He joins three F-M runners – Patrick Perry, Ben Otis and Joe Walters – along with Rome Free Academy’s Davone Hernandez.
Among the other Wildcats runners, Sean Byrnes fared best, getting to 21st place in 17:30.9. Tony Gettino was 33rd in the team standings (37th overall) in 18:10.7, two spots ahead of Paul Stannard (18:22.3) in the team race. Sean O’Brien was 39th in the team race in 18:25.8, just ahead of Patrick Trivison (18:33.8) and Ryan Dunning (18:47.8).
