Each of the Baldwinsville cross country teams would battle their way to third-place finishes in last Saturday’s Section III Class A championships at Chittenango High School.
More importantly, though, the Bees’ Justus Holden-Betts would put together one of the finest performances of her young career and earn a trip to Long Island’s Sunken Meadow State Park for this Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association meet.
Each of the runners had to deal with tough conditions on the 3.1-mile Chittenango course, already saturated by rains during the week. Now more rain fell, adding to the mud, to go with wind and cold temperatures.
Despite it all, and the high level of competition around her, Holden-Betts more than held her own. The B’ville senior finished in 20 minutes, 14.4 seconds, good for fifth place among individuals.
This puts Holden-Betts on a strong Section III All-Star squad with Liverpool’s Jenna Schulz and Madison Neuner, along with Rome Free Academy’s Gianna Capoccia and Oswego’s Molly Fitzgibbons.
The much-anticipated battle for the girls sectional Class A team title among the state’s top two-ranked teams did not disappoint as Fayetteville-Manlius hung on to its sectional crown by a single point over Liverpool, 43-44.
B’ville won the race for third, though, getting 111 points to Cicero-North Syracuse’s 113, and while some of that was due to what happened up front, the rest of the Bees did their part, too.
Sophomore McKenzie Schmidt finished 20th in 21:51.3, with fellow 10th-grader Annabelle Horan getting to 25th place in the team standings (26th overall) in 22:28.9.
Just behind them, sophomore Olivia Creelman was 29th in the team race (31st overall) in 22:57.6, with senior Leah Carpenter 32nd in 23:05.5, one spot ahead of sophomore Vivian Holden-Betts, who finished in 23:13.4. Junior Kathryn Nice had a time of 23:43 flat.
An hour later, in the sectional Class A boys race, B’ville again emerged from the pack to finish third, but its total of 93 points was well ahead of fourth-place Central Square (127 points) as state no. 1-ranked F-M swept the top five and Liverpool was second.
None of the Bees’ individuals could quite reach the state qualifying level, as senior Garrett Vannatta got closest, his 13th-place time of 18:37.6 three spots behind that of the last qualifier, West Genesee’s Matt Bartolotta.
Senior Adam Davis was 14th in 18:39.8, just ahead of junior Jack Michaels, who was 15th in 18:43 flat. Senior Connor McManus made his way to 20th place in 18:55.2 as sophomore Colin Delaney was 31st in 19:23.4.
Another group of B’ville runners secured top-40 finishes. Senior John Arvantides was 33rd in 19:25.1, with senior Joe Licameli 35th in 19:32.7. Two other seniors followed as Sam Kellner (19:33.8) beat out Aaron Sprague (19:33.8) for 37th place.
