On Sept. 16, the Cazenovia boys cross country, ranked 14th in NYS Class C, competed in the East Syracuse-Minoa Invitational.
Twenty-six complete teams and 198 runners participated in the boys’ varsity race which included eight Class A schools. The 3.1-mile race course was flat, dry, and fast. The race day felt more like mid-August rather than mid-September.
Cazenovia ran strong as its finished seventh with a score of 215 points. Five of the six schools that outpaced the Lakers were Class A Schools. Ithaca won the race with a score of 50 points as Cicero-North Syracuse was second with a score of 77 points. They were followed by West Genesee, Jamesville-Dewitt, Rush-Henriettaand Canandaigua.
Jimmy McPherson led the Lakers, crossing the finish line in 16th with a time of 17:26. He was followed closely by Jon Marecek who finished 17th in 17:27. He was followed by Zach Wendell (63rd,18:52), Ian Marshall (66th, 18:53), Noah DeRoche (67th, 18:53), Nick Barna (75th, 19:04) and Jack Gabor (80th, 19:14.
Two junior varsity races were held with the Cazenovia Lakers running in the JV Race 2. The field consisted of seven teams, four of which were Class A schools.
The Lakers finished fifth with a score of 151 points. They were outpaced by C-NS, who ran a score of 27. They were followed by J-D, West Genesee and Baldwinsville. With the merging the JV 1 and JV 2 results, Cazenovia placed 10th of 17 complete teams.
Senior Tony Koppers led the JV team and finished in 27th place with a time of 19:52. He was followed by Freshman Jared Smith (30th, 20:09), Stan Angus (39th, 20:27), Jacob Buckley (20:46), Jacob Ives (21:03), Carson Clonan (21:09) and Cormac Race (21:10).
Also finishing for the Lakers were Sean Smithers (21:22), Chris Stevens (22:37), Torin Monahan (22;38), Andrew Peterson (22:39), Alex Rodriguez (22:54), Elliott Hale (22:59), Tim Gibbons (23:06), Mitch Ponzer (23:16), Justin Ossont (22:31), Eli Hunt (24:09), Sam Stehle (24:13), Brice Hodges (24:24), Dalton Sevier (24:55), Eric Groff (25:02), Aidan Coffey (25:19), Max Beam (25:20), Andrew Ryan (25:22), Isaac Walburger (26:2)), Aeden Berson (27:52) and Adam Thompson (39:41).
Four days later, Cazenovia, sitting at no. 18 in the state Class C rankings,, traveled to state no. 15-ranked Hannibal for a battle of league contenders. Altmar-Parish- Williamstown also ran in the meet.
The 2.8 mile race had the potential to be a one or two-point race between the state ranked squads. In the end, Hannibal was too strong and placed their top six runners ahead of Cazenovia’s third runner..
The Warriors ran away from the Lakers 23-35, but Cazenovia still managed a split by beating APW 15-51.
Hannibal’s Ben Dennison was the overall winner of the race and finished with a time of 15 minutes, 22 seconds. McPherson was the first Laker to cross the finish line, placing second with a time of 15:30, while Marecek was third in 15:36.
Gabor ran his best race of the season as he finished third for the Lakers and crossed the line ninth in 16:25. DeRoche was 10th in 16:38, with Wendell 11th in 16:49 and Marshall 13th in 16:49. Also having his best race of the season, Smith finished seventh among Laker runners and was 13th overall in 17:28 ahead of APW’s top runners.
