As they do each September, East Syracuse Minoa hosted its cross country invitational meet Saturday on its home course at Pine Grove Elementary School.
And the Spartans could take out of this event the fact that it drew Fayetteville-Manlius into both the boys and girls field, knowing they would likely dominate – which they did.
Claire Walters, winning the girls race in 18 minutes, 7.1 seconds, led a 1-2-3 sweep ahead of Hannah Kaercher (18:13.2) and Phoebe White (18:29.3), with Grace Kaercher fifth in 18:57.5.
Ani Sydorowych, in 20:21.1, beat out Amelia Amack (20:21.4) for eighth place as Lejla Borcillo was 11th in 20:36.2.
ESM was 10th thanks to Rachael Ladd’s 15th-place finish in 20:45.1, plus top-50 efforts from Mary Roach (21:52.9) and Taylor Hoffman, who posted 23:22.5.
Taking eighth place on the team side, Jamesville-DeWitt had Madeline Foss finish 26th in 21:40.8, while Megan O’Malley went 22:05.9 for 36th place in the team race. Kathryn Sizing, in 23:13 flat, was 45th, just ahead of Cora Gilbert-Siecherma (23:37.5) and Miriam Zoghby, who finished in 23:46 flat. Bishop Grimes’ Edy Livingston took 44th place in the team race in 23:12.5.
The feature of the boys race was having ESM star Nick Berg beat everyone except a trio of F-M runners, Berg finishing fourth in 16:36.6.
Otherwise, F-M had a top-five sweep, Peyton Geehrer and Sam Otis both hitting the line in 15:57.7, with Geehrer declared the winner. Geoff Howles was third in 16:14.3, with James Peden fifth (17:02.) and Jack Altimonda sixth in 17:11.3.
Berg, along with a 33rd-place showing from Casey Engineri (18:45.1), helped ESM to a 10th-place finish in a 28-team field. J-D was 12th, led by 19:33.7 from Gabriel Cuello. Manlius-Pebble Hill’s Will Markwood finished 52nd in 19:25.2.
Before this, ESM and J-D both had their SCAC Empire division opening meets, with the Red Rams more successful as it swept three-team meets against Oswego and Auburn.
J-D’s girls edged Oswego 26-31 and topped Auburn 18-43. The Buccaneers claimed the top two spots before Foss finished third in 22:35, with O’Malley fourth in 23:48 and Sizing fifth in 23:51. Zoghby (23:55) and Gilbert-Siechema (24:49) also had top-10 finishes.
On the boys side, J-D won 20-41 over Oswego and 25-35 over Auburn, with the Red Rams’ Ahviere Reese second in 18:45 behind the Maroons’ Jimmy Vasile, who won in 18:14. Luke Hobika was fourth in 19:05, with Collin Rivercomb sixth in 19:20 as Brian Hulbert was eighth (19:26) and Ashton Corona ninth (19:35).
ESM’s girls swept Syracuse West 15-45 as l Ladd won the race in 22:10, more than a minute ahead of the 23:11 posted by Roach. Elena Vespi was third in 25 minutes flat as Hoffman got fourth place in 25:23 and Allyanna O’Brien (27:15) completed a top-five Spartans sweep.
But the ESM boys lost 24-31 to Syracuse West despite Berg’s 17:27, which beat Syracuse West’s Connor Shanahan (19:16) by nearly two full minutes.
Engineri was fourth in 19:34, but that was the Spartans’ only other top-five finish. Spencer Carnival got seventh place in 21 minutes flat as Brandon Walters (21:07) beat out John Courcy (21:11) for ninth place.
Fresh off its Sept. 7 Vernon-Verona-Invitational sweep, F-M earned twin 15-50 wins over Henninger last Wednesday as some of the lesser-known Hornets’ runners got a chance to race for individual glory.
On the girls side, Sydorowych won in 19:00.7, edging Borcillo (19:01.6) at the finish line. Fiona Mejico finished third in 19:11.2, while Debbie Lucchetti, in 20:11.9, easily took fourth place. Alexa Bolton (20:54.2) held off Julia Sun (21:11.7) for fifth place as Katie Berge’ was seventh in 21:23.7 and Julia Gorman (21:26.0) was ninth.
Moving to the boys race, F-M’s Daniel Patrick beat the field in 16:48.9, with Owen Snyder second in 16:57.2.Trevor Krukin was third in 17:07.2, just ahead of Ben Perry (17:12.2), with Keaton Vest fifth in 17:18.4. William Seamans (17:19.4), Joe Fraguso (17:42.1) and James Grace (18:27.9) completed a top-eight sweep.
