During a full slate of high school cross country races, West Genesee and Marcellus both gained sweeps last Wednesday – the Mustangs against Altmar-Parish-Williamstown, the Wildcats against Syracuse East.
With its no. 17 state Class A ranking, the West Genesee girls won 15-50 over Syracuse East, with Faith Knox going 20 minutes, 56.9 seconds on the Camillus Middle School course to take individual honors.
Hannah Craybas was second in 21:25.6, while Mia Mitchell (21:46.2) beat out Liz Morey (21:47.2) for third place. Kendall Dombroske was fifth in 22:33 flat ahead of Abby Kuppinger (22:43.4), Emma Farmer (23:02.3), Emily Huttar (23:15.7), Mikeayla DeJesus (23:56.3) and Emma Lounsbery (24.42.0).
For the WG boys team as it beat Syracuse East 15-49, Matt Bartolotta was victorious in 18:30.6 as Luke Mullane was second in 18:50.1, edging Graye Mehl (18:51.8) for that spot as Joe Parisi was fourth in 18:54.6.
James Alberts finished fifth in 19:10.3 as Nick Mulderig (19:24.4) got sixth place. Mark Salanger, in 20:07.6, was ahead of Matt McMahon (20:15.5) and Chris Cuttler (20:22.3).
The Marcellus girls swept the top spots as Maggie Strempel, in a time of 24:17, edged out Madeline Caron (24:18) at the front, with Brielle McShane third in 24:24.
Carolyn Carlic got fourth place in 24:52 and Violet Grieb (24:53) was fifth in front of Virginia Lucchetti (25:16), Alyssa McShane (25:37) and Carley Frajda (27:53).
For the Marcellus boys (no. 19 in the state Class C rankings) against APW, Nick Roseboom won in 18:32, with Aiden Shea (18:52) and Gabriel Hoag (19:11) completing a top-three sweep.
Kyle Stottler made it to fifth place in 19:49, and more Mustangs followed as Charles Donovan was sixth in 20:02 ahead of Kevin Huss (20:18), Aiden Stasik (20:47), Riley LaFrance (21:08) and Jaiden Capozzi (22:05).
After this, Marcellus ran Saturday in the Chittenango Invitational, where the boys were fifth in its Small School race, beating most of the 35-team field as Jordan-Elbridge was sixth, helped by Sean Dristle taking eighth place with a time of 16:21.3.
For the Mustangs, Aidan Shea was 20th in the team standings with a time of 16:52.5, with Nick Roseboom 39th (17:14.7) and Kyle Stottlar 48th (17:25.2) ahead of Grayson Hoag (17:41.6). For the Eagles, Kenny Williams was 35th in 17:11.3 and Derek Quigley (17:19.3) was 44th.
The Marcellus girls finished sixth out of 31 teams in the girls Small School race as Strempel took 18th place in the team race in 19:45.3, with Caron 37th (20:51.8) and McShane (21:21.6) just missing a top-50 placement. J-E was 15th as Hannah Fichter (47th, 21:09.5) and Vassiana Klock (21:30.8) were well ahead of the other Eagles’ runners.
J-E, in its league opener against Skaneateles, was close, yet took losses to the Lakers – 25-30 on the girls side, 24-31 on the boys side.
In the boys race, Dristle finished in 16:57, behind only the Lakers’ Caleb Bender (16:21). Williams was fifth in 17:36 and Quigley was sixth in 17:42, with Logan Kinney eighth (17:53) and Lee Jewell 10th in 18:17
The J-E girls had Fitcher second in 21:38, just ahead of Klock (21:40) as Skaneateles saw Georgia McSwain prevail in 20:14. Then the Lakers took four of the next five spots, with only Madison Daly (22 minutes flat) interrupting for the Eagles in sixth place as Ireland Hill (24:10) beat out Kendall Shaw (24:11) for ninth place.
Westhill, despite its no. 13 state Class C ranking, lost a close 25-30 race to unranked Chittenango in girls action last Wednesday afternoon. Liz Kessler finished in 21:59, second to the 21:11 from the Bears’ McKenzie Dombroski.
Haylei Coolican finished in 22:22 and Kendra MacCaull in 23:09, but they trailed Chittenango’s Chelsea Lamphere (22:06) and McKayla Capeling (22:12), and the Bears’ Brooke Price (23:19) and Kiara Waite (23:26) were just ahead of the Warriors’ duo of Kylie Nowicki (23:32) and Katherine Evans (23:40).
But the Westhill boys defeated Chittenango 23-34 as Dan Washburn won the individual race in 17:32, nearly half a minute clear of the Bears’ Ersilio Cerminaro (18:00) in second place.
Jacob Fricano, who finished fourth in 18:27, led a group of four Warriors as Brendan Rewakowski (18:28) was right behind Fricano, with Mike Ferrara sixth in 18:47 and Angelo Carr seventh in 19:01. Jacob Roberts got 10th place in 19:26.
Solvay was swept by Homer last Wednesday in a pair of 15-50 decisions. Still, Luke Dwyer finished fourth for the boys Bearcats with a time of 20:12, while Max Melnyk was fifth in 20:31 and Ryan Trendell (21:58) was seventh.
