Important as it was, the Salt City Athletic Conference cross country championships held Wednesday at Baldwinsville served as yet another table-setter for bigger clashes ahead.
At least that’s how the Fayetteville-Manlius girls had to see it after the state Class A no. 2-ranked Hornets finished second behind state no. 1-ranked Liverpool in both the SCAC Metro and overall standings.
The scores were 30-34 in the league portion and 34-41 overall, each of them reversing what happened Sept. 26 at Long Branch Park, where F-M edged Liverpool 26-29 to propel itself to league regular-season honors.
But that first race only included one other team, West Genesee. This edition had a far larger field, which ultimately worked to Liverpool’s advantage.
A tone was set by Jenna Schulz, who was far closer to the Hornets’ Claire Walters at the front of the field on the Durgee course than she was at Long Branch. Walters still won in 17 minutes, 39.8 seconds, but Schulz, in 18:00.7, was less than 20 seconds behind.
And the rest of the Warriors fed off Schulz’s effort, helped in no small part by the fact that Cicero-North Syracuse eighth-grader Kate Putman affected the points race by finishing third in 18:28.4.
After F-M’s Grace Kaercher posted 18:30 flat for fourth place, the Warriors had Sydney Carlson take fifth place in 18:42.5 and Madison Neuner closely follow, getting sixth place in 18:45.1.
That gave Liverpool a two-point lead, which it protected by having Emily Neuner finish ninth in 19:04.7 and Windsor Ardner get to 12th place in 19:25.9.
Meanwhile, F-M had Hannah Kaercher finish 10th (19:07.9), Phoebe White finish 11th (19:24.0) and Chloe Bullough take 15th place (19:45.5). Emily Cook was 16th in 19:51.2 and Lejla Borcilo was 18th in 20:02.5.
In all, seven Warriors runners finished within the top 20 in the league standings as Gabby McCarthy, in a time of 20:04.5, finished 19th and Bella Brancato was 20th in 20:10.3.
Contrast this with the SCAC Metro boys meet, which was all F-M. The state no. 1-ranked Hornets not only beat no. 4-ranked Liverpool 17-43 in the league standings and 18-49 overall, it had the four quickest times of the day.
Sam Otis led F-M this time around, his time of 15:58.3 comfortably ahead of Geoff Howles, who finished second in 16:03.2. Then Peyton Geehrer and Matt Tripp hit the line together, Geehrer in 16:11.8 and Tripp (16:11.9) a tenth of a second behind.
Garrett Brennan was close behind them, getting seventh place in 16:30.7, with Nolan Chiles 12th in the league standings in 16:43.4 and Yakob Kelley 15th in 16:47.6.
As a further display of F-M’s depth, John Meskos finished 23rd among all runners with a time of 17:04.6. Jack Altimonda was 26th in 17:08.4 as Max Perry got to 31st place in 17:14.6.
Each F-M side would now get more than two weeks to prepare for the Nov. 3 Section III Class A championships at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, which just won the rights to host state championship meets in 2020 and 2022.
