With its regular-season slate of Salt City Athletic Conference meets already in the books, the Baldwinsville cross country teams could spend October warming up and improving at large-scale meets of various kinds.
One of them was last Saturday’s Tully Invitational, where the Bees would finish fifth among 10 teams in the boys Large School division and the girls had a sixth-place effort in a field of 11 teams.
B’ville’s boys had Eric Smith just miss a top 10 finish as, in 17 minutes, 55.7 seconds, he got 11th place, with the race won by Fairport’s Kaelen Ruder in 16:03.4.
Owen Weaver took 25th place in 18:59.1, with Trevor Best 29th in 19:14.8. Jack McManus, in a clocking of 19:19.3, edged teammate Jeff Ragonese (19:19.6) for 31st place, while Arthur Chappell Bauer (19:26.2) and Max Naples (19:38.5) trailed them.
To lead the girls Bees, Annabelle Horan posted a time of 22:20.5 for 18th place. Lily Horan got 27th place in 23:21.9, with Claire Walker (23:27.9) just ahead of Catherine Thompson (23:47.0) in 31st place. They were ahead of Carsyn Cronin (24:57.2), Ella Smith (25:13.7) and Josephina Libbon (25:35.0).
The big highlight of the day was seeing Tully’s multiple state champion, Brooke Rauber, win the girls Small School race in a course-record time of 17:14.3 that beat all but eight of the boys times for the entire day.
Now each of the B’ville teams will head to the annual Manhattan Invitational this weekend at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, the last tune-up before it hosts the Oct. 16 SCAC championships.
