While the annual trip to New York City for the Manhattan Invitational brought many highlights for the Baldwinsville cross country teams, the victory earned by senior Justus Holden-Betts stood out.
As thousands of runners from across the Northeast gathered at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx for the 2.5-mile race, B’ville’s girls were in Varsity Race D, where Holden-Betts took over.
In a time of 14 minutes, 54.6 seconds, Holden-Betts was the only girl in the field under 15-minute mark and routed the field of 172 challengers as Sherwood’s Katie Kaneko was second in 15:32.7, more than half a minute behind.
B’ville, as a team, finished seventh with 181 points as West Windsor-Plainsboro, from New Jersey, won with 101 points.
The next-fastest Bees runner, Olivia Creelman, finished 27th in 16:22.1, with Annabelle Horan 42nd in 16:50.1 and McKenzie Schmidt getting 48th place in 16:57.3. Vivian Holden-Betts was 63rd in 17:23 flat ahead of Maya Hewitt (17:32.7) and Leah Carpenter (17:34.2).
Meanwhile, the B’ville boys team was assigned to Varsity Race C at the Manhattan meet. Of the seven teams there, the Bees finished third with 185 points, trailing only Shenendehowa and West Windsor-Plainsboro.
Junior Jack Michaels led the Bees as he took 29th place in 13:33.5, just ahead of Adam Davis, who got to 32nd place in 13:35.4 as Colin Delaney finished 34th in 13:36.8.
Connor McManus, in a clocking of 13:39.6, got to 39th place, with Sam Kellner 51st in 13:51.7 as Joe Licameli was 56th in 13:55.6 and John Arvantides was 61st in 13:58.9.
B’ville will host both of the Salt City Athletic Conference championship races this Wednesday at Durgee Junior High School.
