Part of the changes wrought by the formation of the Salt City Athletic Conference was not having two separate league championship meets for some area cross country teams.
Instead, 14 teams gathered Wednesday at Baldwinsville to battle for SCAC honors, though most of them would go to Fayetteville-Manlius in yet another Hornets demolition, only this time with Jamesville-DeWitt and East Syracuse Minoa as fellow competitors.
F-M followed-up its near-sweep of the Oct. 14 Eastern States Championships at the Manhattan Invitational by having its boys runners dominate the top five on the Durgee Junior High School course.
Geoff Howles led that group, the Hornets sophomore needing 15 minutes, 43.6 seconds to finish ahead of Ben Otis, who was second in 15:46.2.
That pair got away, but F-M had more depth on hand, led by Sam Otis, who got third place in 16:15.3 as Matt Tripp finished fourth in 16:18.8, edging Peyton Geehrer, who took fifth place in 16:19 flat.
Top-20 efforts also went to Jack Duncanson (16:37.1) in 12th place and junior Eli Capri (16:49.7) in 17th place, F-M finishing with 15 points as host B’ville was second with 58 points.
The girls race was yet another showdown between state Class A no. 1-ranked F-M and state no. 3-ranked Liverpool, and with 19 points the Hornets pulled away from the Warriors (57 points), keyed by a top-three sweep.
Phoebe White won the race in 17 minutes, 24.6 seconds, pulling clear as Claire Walters was second in 17:35.8 and Sophie Ryan got third place in 17:49.2.
Helping out, Rebecca Walters finished fifth in 18:04.9, with Grace Kaercher eighth in 18:30.8 and Palmer Madsen ninth in 18:39.7. Izzy Crovella, in 19:20.1, beat out Alex Villalba (19:21.1) for 16th place. Emily Cook (20:10.6), Lejla Borcilo (20:20.7), Chloe Bullough (20:46.7) and Rebecca White (20:50.0) all finished in the top 50.
Of the SCAC Empire division sides at this meet, Jamesville-DeWitt did best in the girls division, gaining 151 points for sixth place as, individually, Madeline Foss led that league group with a 12th-place time of 19:03.9 and Sophia Vinciguerra was 15th in 19:17.3.
Ayla Erwin finished 43rd in 20:40.1 for the Red Rams, with Abby Leavitt (21:03.5) holding off Amelia Gilbert (21:04.4) for 48th place. Megan Brown was 65th in 21:45.6 as, for ESM, Emma Biel (21:59.7).Julia Schug (22:21.4) and Mary Roach (22:32.3) had the best times.
J-D’s boys also were best among SCAC Empire teams, also taking sixth place, though it was ESM’s Nick Berg beating out the Red Rams’ individuals thanks to his 21st-place finish in 17:02.3.
The Rams still had Kaleel Boykins finish 25th in 17:05.4, with Ahviere Reese 32nd in 17:16.9 and Sam Glisson 34th in 17:17.7. Nick Mannion finished 39th in 17:28.5, with Alan Gao (17:41.3) two spots ahead of Nate Rindfuss (17:43.7) as the Spartans’ Nolan Byrd (17:49.4) and David Rivers (17:52.5) were 52nd and 53rd, respectively.
