Collectively, cross country teams in the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division moved up their regular-season slates in 2019, finishing league meets in September.
Among other things, it helps these powerful programs to go to as many large-scale October meets as possible and fully prepare and train for Section III and state championship meets in November.
This meant that Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse opened their regular season earlier than seasons past – against each other, with the Warriors sweeping both sides of their rivalry clash Wednesday afternoon at Long Branch Park.
In a close girls meet, the Warriors, coming off an appearance in last December’s Nike Cross Nationals, fended off a strong challenge from the Northstars to prevail 26-29 as both sides easily swept the third team in the meet, Henninger.
Jenna Schulz finished in 18 minutes, 13.6 seconds, more than a minute clear of C-NS’s Kate Putman, who won the battle for second place in 19:35.9 to the 19:40.9 from Liverpool’s Sydney Carlson.
Bella Brancato’s 20:16.8 proved valuable for the Warriors since she beat out the Northstars’ Marissa Navarra (20:18.2) for fourth place, while Allison Newton was sixth (20:36.8) and Gabby Putman seventh (20:52.6) for C-NS.
To help Liverpool hang on, Eva Woodworth had to take eighth place in 21:03.8 and Gabby McCarthy finished ninth in 21:26.1, with the Northstars’ Marissa Doty (21:40.0) edging Hannah Reichard (21:46.6) for 10th plac.e
It wasn’t as close in the boys meet, Liverpool topping C-NS 19-38 as, again, both sides handled Henninger. The Warriors had a top-three sweep as Carter Rodriguez won in 16:41.8 and Jake McGowan was second in 16:51.4,with Ryan Cartwright third in 17:13.5.
Matt LeClair led the Northstars, finishing fourth in 17:31.2 to edge teammate R.J. Davis (17:33.9), but Liverpool clinched its win by having Charlie Praschunus (17:59.3) and Ethan Glashauser (18:03.4) in the next two spots and Ryan Feenelly (18:14.4) ninth. Zach Bergman was eighth for C-NS in 18:09.1 ahead of Josh Koeppe (18:17.1) and Evan Romano (18:17.8).
Now both sides went to Saturday’s Vernon-Verona-Invitational, with C-NS in the Varsity 2 race and Liverpool in Varsity 4.
And the girls Warriors were victorious, 32 points to runner-up Rome Free Academy’s 64, with Schulz going 18:41 flat but finishing second behind Tully star Brooke Rauber, whose 18:11.6 shattered the course record of 18:30.1 Fayetteville-Manlius’ Claire Walters had set earlier in the meet.
Liverpool had half of the top-10 finishers. Carlson working her way to fifth place in 20:04.9 as Woodworth was seventh in 21:08 flat. Brancato finished eighth in 21:11.5 and McCarthy was 10th in 21:29.3.
In the boys race, Liverpool, with 53 points, was a close second to Beaver River’s 46 points, the Beavers getting a 1-2 sweep from Colton Kempney (16:21.3) and Cory Demo (16:26.6) ahead of any of the Warriors’ runners.
Rodriguez made his way to fourth place in 16:50.9, with McGowan fifth in 17:05.9. Ryan Hagan had a strong race, getting to 12th place in 18:13.3, two spots ahead of Glashauser (18:22.8) as Praschunus was 18th in 18:32.7.
Baldwinsville was at the VVS meet, too, squaring off with C-NS in Varsity 2, but it was the Northstars sweeping the boys and girls races, with the Bees second to C-NS in the boys division.
Davis led the boys Northstars and the field as his time of 17:04.8 was just ahead of B’ville’s Jack Michaels, who was second in 17:08.1. Michaels’ teammate, Colin Delaney, got third place in 17:24.1.
Yet C-NS took over by having five of the top 14 finishers, while no other Bees runner hit the top 20. Mat t LeClair was fourth in 17:26.9, with Evan Romano eighth in the team race (11th overall) in 18:08.9. Bergman (18:28.5) beat out Koeppe (18:32.4) for 13th place, the Bees having Justin Chemento(18:54.5) and James Cary (18:58.3) 22nd and 23rd, respectively.
Over in the girls race, Kate Putman, finishing fourth in 19:51.7, led four Northstars with top-10 efforts. Navarra got sixth place in 20:52.2, beating out Gabby Putman (20:54.2) in seventh place as Newton was ninth in 21:26.8 and Doty 11th in 21:39.9.
No one on B’ville could match those totals, with McKenzie Schmidt leading the Bees as she got 16th place in the team standings (19th overall) in 22:24 flat. Sarah Fawwaz, in 22:50.7, was just ahead of Vivian Holden-Betts (22:52.6), Margaret Solomon (23:09.6) and Anna Conklin (23:24.1).
This came after the Bees won its league opener last Wednesday over Nottingham 18-45 (boys) and 15-52 (girls), with Michaels victorious in the boys race at 17:10, nearly half a minute ahead of the 17:39 from Delaney. Cary was fourth in 18:36, edging Chimento (18:39) for that spot,
In the girls race, B’ville swept the top seven, Schmidt winning in 21:53, just ahead of Olivia Creelman’s 22:09. Fawwaz was third in 22:15, followed by Solomon (22:35), Vivian Holden-Betts (22:56), Conklin (23:23) and Sage Springsteen (23:27).
