Every inch and every placement would count when the Chittenango boys cross country team held off Marcellus to win Wednesday’s Onondaga High School League Liberty division championships at Long Branch Park in Liverpool.
When all was totaled, the Bears had 95 points, one ahead of the Mustangs’ total of 96 points. Jordan-Elbridge and Skaneateles tied for third place with 121 points.
This was very much a collective effort. None of the Chittenango runners finished inside the top 10 as Homer’s Grant Stokoe took the individual title in 17 minutes, 7.3 seconds, edging Marcellus’ Joe Riccardi (17:09.4) for that title.
Ersilio Cerminaro put the Bears on the board by finishing 11th in 17:38.5. In between the Mustangs’ second and third runners (Ethan Mosure 15th, Grayson Hoag 20th), Karl Farber got 16th place in 17:55.5 and Matt Morak finished 18th in 18:09.4.
Just as important to Chittenango was the work of Dave Gratien and Lucas Spirilidozzi, as Gratien finished 24th in 18:24.2 and Spiridilozzi got 26th place in 18:26.7 to round out the scoring column.
Then the Bears saw Marcellus’ Riley Burns finish 27th and Charles Donovan take 32nd place – but Donovan needed to finish 30th to secure the league meet, so Chittenango held on for the victory.
Elsewhere for the Bears, Caleb Seale finished 52nd in 19:21.3, just ahead of teammates Nate Lampman (19:28.1) and Devlin Cameron (19:31.2), who were 57th and 61st, respectively.
In the girls OHSL Liberty meet, Chittenango had a solid showing, too, earning 124 points for fourth place. CBA, the state’s no. 1-ranked Class C team, won with 18 points as Westhill (75 points) and Cazenovia (84 points) followed.
Mackenzie Dombroski made her way to 13th place in a clocking of 21:38.1 to lead the Bears as Chelsea Lamphere was 14th in 21.45.9. McKayla Capeling was 29th in 22:58.1.
Kiara Waite, in a time of 23:38.4, finished 33rd, two spots ahead of Devin Gordon (23:54.5) in 35th place. Brooke Price took 40th place in 24:14.3, while Jada Sowich (24:42.1) was 45th ahead of Lailah Emad (25:35.1), Maddy Heller (25:42.1), Kayla Mendez (25:57.5) and Eryn Thompson (26:02.4).
After all this, Chittenango hosted its own invitational meet on Saturday, where the boys Bears finished fourth out of 10 teams in Varsity Race 2 behind Beaver River, Cicero-North Syracuse and East Syracuse Minoa.
Individually, Farber had the best showing as he finished in 17:43 flat to take 13th place. Spirdilozzi, in 18:24.5, beat out Cerminaro (18:25.2) for 26th place, while Seale (18:53.6) finished ahead of Gratien (18:56.8) and Lampman (19:02.8).
In the girls Varsity Race 2, Chittenango’s girls was fifth in a 10-team field as Beaver River won with 26 points. Dombroski, in 21:31.4, got 12th place, with Lamphere 16th in 21:48 flat. Capeling was 28th among team runners (33rd overall) in 22:49.6 as Waite (23:06.1), Price (23:45.0) and Emad (24:30.9) followed.
Hannibal won the boys Varsity 1 race and South Lewis took the girls Varsity 1 race, Individual titles went to Hannibal’s Ben Dennison (Varsity 1) and Beaver River’s Colton Kempney (Varsity 2) in boys divisions, with Hannah Ielfeld (South Lewis) and Mia Pestle (C-NS) the girls Varsity 1 and 2 winners, respectively.
