Less than five seconds separated Ty Brownlow from Stephen Schulz when the Liverpool cross country seniors finished their work in Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class A championship race at Chenango Valley State Park.
Yet that was all it took to separate the top four runners in the field – and elevate Brownlow to an individual state title to match the team honors he earned with the Warriors one year ago.
All race long, the lead pack stayed tight, with Brownlow and Schulz battling it out with Sachem North’s Chris Tibbetts and Guilderland’s Noah Carey.
When they raced to the finish line, though, Brownlow, in 15 minutes, 27.5 seconds, had beaten Tibbetts (15:30.5) by three seconds, with Schulz settling for fourth place in 15:32.1 behind Carey’s clocking of 15:30.7.
All of this helped Liverpool finish third in the team Class A state championship standings, though it had the same total of points (80) as Warwick Valley, with Corning, from Section IV, dethroning the Warriors as it won with 59 points.
Not far behind Brownlow and Schulz, fellow senior Josh Hickmott finished 11th overall, and ninth in the team standings, with a time of 15:45.9. Yet it was a while before junior Emil Videman finished 29th on the team side (43rd overall) in 16:49 flat.
Sophomore Dawson Newbern, competing in his first state meet, was 43rd in the team standings in 17:10.6, with junior Cullen McLaughlin 53rd in the team race in 17:33 flat and sophomore Nathan Reeves finishing in 18:08.4.
All of their efforts, plus those of Fayetteville-Manlius runners Patrick Perry (seventh), Joe Walters (19th) and Ben Otis (34th), along with Rome Free Academy’s Davone Hernandez (sixth) and West Genesee’s David Leff (18th), helped Section III, with 251 points, enough to hold off Section IV (296 points) for the team title.
Thanks to a top-10 run from freshman Jenna Schulz and a solid run by sophomore Madison Neuner, Liverpool also had a part in the team title won by the girls Section III Class A runners with 224 points, well clear of runner-up Section II (319 points) and the field.
Schulz made her way to 10th place in 18 minutes, 19.2 seconds, barely a minute behind the course-record 17:17.5 posted by Saratoga Springs’ Kelsey Chmiel. Neuner finished 39th in a clocking of 19:17.6. Fayetteville-Manlius won its 11th consecutive state Class A team title with 35 points to runner-up North Rockland’s total of 65 points.
