At the very end, in the most important meet of the season, the 2016 version of the Liverpool boys cross country team managed to top its 2015 state Class A championship predecessors.
The Warriors claimed ninth place amid a field of 22 teams during Saturday’s Nike Cross Nationals at Glendoveer Golf Course in Portland, Oregon, with seniors Steve Schulz and Ty Brownlow closing out their high school cross country careers with top-15 individual finishes.
Even with all that it accomplished a year ago en route to the Section III and state Class A crowns, Liverpool only got to 10th place at the Nike Nationals. The returning Warriors remembered that effort was were determined to do better.
And it did, with the added satisfaction of getting the last laugh on Fayetteville-Manlius in their year-long tug-of-war that included the Warriors repeating as sectional Class A champions but the Hornets prevailing at the New York/Northeast Regionals a week before the Nike Nationals. F-M could only manage a 19th-place finish in Portland.
Another twist came from the fact that it was Schulz, and not Brownlow (the individual champion at the New York/Northeast Regionals), at the front of the Warriors’ contingent.
Schulz mastered the hilly 3.1-mile Glendoveer course, finishing in 15 minutes, 49.4 seconds, rising to 12th place, just 21 seconds behind the winning 15:28.4 posted by American Fork (Utah) standout Casey Clinger.
Meanwhile, Brownlow made his way to 14th place in 15:55.9, less than seven seconds behind Schulz, and both of them were well clear of fellow senior Josh Hickmott, who finished 14th among team runners, but 46th overall, in a clocking of 16:24.3, five spots ahead of F-M’s top individual, Patrick Perry, who was 51st.
As to the other Liverpool runners, Emil Videman posted a time of 17:36.4, while Cullen McLaughlin finished in 18:06.7, half a second ahead of Dawson Newbern’s finish in 18:07.2. Nathan Reeves ran to a time of 18:24.5.
Earlier in Portland, the F-M girls cross country team won the Nike Cross Nationals title for the 10th time in 11 years, earning 41 points to blow out the field as California sides Davis (181 points) and Temecula (184 points) were far back in the second and third spots.
