In honor of the newly-formed Salt City Athletic Conference, each of its 14 boys and girls cross country teams gathered at Baldwinsville last Wednesday for the league’s inaugural league championship meet.
West Genesee fared quite well in that group, especially on the girls side, where it finished third with 101 points. It took state Class A no. 1-ranked Fayetteville-Manlius and state no. 3-ranked Liverpool to finish ahead of the Wildcats.
Carly Benson led WG’s individuals, making her way to 11th place in 18 minutes, 49.2 seconds, though it was a ways back of the winning 17:24.6 posted by F-M’s Phoebe White.
Emily Young got 14th place in 19:15.1, while Mia Mitchell finished 23rd in 19:56.5. Hannah Craybas posted a 27th-place finish in 20:05.8 as Mikeayla DeJesus was 29th in 20:08.8 and Liz Morey was 31st in 20:12.3. Faith Knox ran well, too, getting 34th place in 20:20.2.
In the boys SCAC meet, West Genesee rose to fifth place with 124 points. F-M won here, too, the state no. 1-ranked Hornets sweeping the top five as Geoff Howles led them, winning the race in 15:46.2.
As to the Wildcats, Sean Byrnes notched a top-10 finish, making his way to ninth place in 16:29.6, with Matt Bartolotta close behind as he got 11th place in 16:32.9.
Behind them, Tony Gettino had WG’s best effort, finishing 26th in 17:08 flat. Nathan Couse got to 37th place in 17:26.7 as Patrick Trivison was 46th in 17:36.5. Paul Stannard was 55th in 17:57.8 ahead of Kyle Jenkins (18:15.0), Nick Mulderig (18:17.9), Jack Richards (18:40.5) and Ryan Allen (18:55.3).
From there, WG went to Saturday’s Marathon Invitational, where Young was the individual champion for the girls Wildcats on the way to a second-place finish with 48 points behind Ithaca’s winning total of 40 points.
Young, in a time of 19:26.1, beat Ithaca’s Lizzy Rayle (19:29.4) by more than three seconds at the finish line. Benson was fourth, in 19:58.3, while Morey, in 20:59 flat, beat out Knox (21:01.3) for 13th place. Mitchell finished 29th in 21:45.8.
The boys Wildcats finished fourth at Marathon in a 13-team field, with Byrnes making his way to sixth place in 17:07.2 and Bartolotta finishing ninth in 17:05.6. Gettino was 33rd in 17:56.8 as Trivison got 40th place (18:16.5) and Stannard (18:26.7) was just ahead of Couse (18:28.7) and Jenkins (18:29.8).
Once that was complete, two full weeks of practice was in store for WG’s boys and girls sides until the Nov. 5 Section III Class A championships at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill.
