When the Westhill boys cross country team finished third in the OHSL Liberty division championships on Oct. 24, it didn’t linger on it too much – but it did remember what happened, and used it as motivation to claim a bigger prize.
That came when the Warriors got even with the teams that beat them in the league meet, Skaneateles and Hannibal, and earned the Section III Class C championship last Saturday at a mud-soaked Chittenango High School course.
With a total of 79 points, Westhill was six ahead of Skaneateles (85 points) and well clear of Hannibal’s third-place total of 103 points. Additionally, the Warriors edged the Lakers 50-54 in the Class C-1 division.
Dan Washburn led this effort, going exactly 19 minutes, one second to finish third among individuals, one spot ahead of Skaneateles’ top runner, Caleb Bender (19:02.8) to get his side in front early.
Then the Warriors hung close as Brendan Rewakowski took 11th place in 19:30.5 and Jacob Fricano was 16th in 19:50.8, though they were behind the Lakers’ second and third runners.
But Westhill overtook Skaneateles for good by having Will Thornton claim 22nd place in 20:19 flat and Mike Ferrara finish 27th in 20:34.3 to clinch it. Angelo Carr was 33rd in 20:57.7 as Jacob Roberts (21:13.1) also had a top-40 finish.
Meanwhile, Marcellus finished fifth in Class C-1 (eighth overall) and Jordan-Elbridge got seventh place in C-1 (10th overall), with the Eagles’ Kenny Williams getting the best individual finish for these sides, taking 24th place in 20:27.6 as Sean Dristle was 29th in 20:39.1.
For the Mustangs, Aidan Shea was 32nd in 20:49.4, while Nick Roseboom was 37th in 21:09.7 and Kyle Stottlar was 45th (21:22.1) in the team standings. Kevin Huss, in 22:12.3, was ahead of Grayson Hoag (22:21.8), Charles Donovan (22:23.4) and Aiden Stasik (22:34.8).
On J-E’s side, no one else got close to the times of Williams and Dristle. Derek Quigley was 62nd in the team race in 22:03.6, beating out Logan Kinney (22:13.6), Matt Sheldon (22:25.8), Lee Jewell (22:48.7) and Colin Jewsbury (23:30.4).
Solvay was 10th in the C-1 standings, led by Ryan Trendell, who was 59th in the team race in 21:59.5, just ahead of the likes of Luke Dwyer (22:10.0) and Adam Delucia (22:13.1) as Max Melynk posted 22:40.1.
Earlier, in the girls sectional Class C meet, Westhill was third with 94 points behind Clinton and South Jefferson, with Marcellus fifth and J-E seventh, the Warriors only trailing South Jefferson among C-1 sides.
However, by getting sixth place in a time of 23:14.3, the Warriors’ Haylei Coolican secured the fifth and final individual spot in the state meet to join her male counterparts.
Liz Kessler was 10th in 23:28.5, while Katherine Evans was 22nd in 24:29.6. Kylie Nowicki got 30th place in the team standings in 25:03 flat as Angie Mesa-Espinosa (25:26.6) and Ashley Heffernan (26:13.6) followed.
Just missing a top-10 finish for Marcellus, Maggie Strempel was 11th in 23:28.9, with Madeline Caron 28th among team runners in 24:54.2. Brielle McShane was 33rd in 25:14.2 ahead of Violet Grieb (25:33.5) and Carolyn Carlic (25:44.1) in the top 50.
On J-E’s side, it was Vassianna Klock leading the way as she got to 23rd place in 24:30.1. Hannah Fichter had a 29th-place team finish in 24:56.5 as Tatianna Parkolap (26:11.6) was just ahead of Kendall Shaw’s 26:36 flat.
Much earlier, both of the sectional Class A races were run, and West Genesee’s Matt Bartolotta earned a spot in the state meet.
Overall, Bartolotta finished 10th in 18:22 flat, but he was fifth among runners outside of the winning team from Fayetteville-Manlius, so he joins a sectional All-Star team that includes three Liverpool runners (Jake McGowan, Nathan Reeves and Nick Brancato), plus Rome Free Academy’s Nate Sletten.
WG’s boys finished eighth in the 12-team Class A field. Aside from Bartolotta, Graye Mehl had the best effort, taking 42nd in the team standings in 19:59 flat as James Alberts (21:23.9), Nick Mulderig (21:26.1) and Mark Salanger (21:30.5) were close together.
Doing better, the girls Wildcats were sixth out of 12 teams in its Class A sectional meet, with Faith Knox grabbing 19th place in 21:49.4 to lead the way. Natalie Buckhout was 30th among team runners in 23:01.3, with Olivia Lockwood 34th in 23:23.6, just ahead of Mia Mitchell (23:26.5), Emily Huttar (23:31.5) and Hannah Craybas (23:31.5).
