Once more, cross country runners from Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse went up against elite fields when they traveled to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx for last Saturday’s Manhattan Invitational.
Each of the Liverpool teams was in the main event, the Eastern States Championships, with Jenna Schulz leading the girls to a third-place finish and the boys Warriors picking up a solid eighth-place finish.
Schulz found herself among several local runners – in fact, of the top 11 in the girls Eastern States race, seven were from Section III.
Among them, Schulz got sixth place in exactly 14 minutes, 19 seconds, the winning time of 13:33.2 posted by North Rockland star Katelyn Tuohy as Fayetteville-Manlius’ Claire Walters (13:45.9) and Tully’s Brooke Rauber (13:52.1).
Team-wise, Liverpool, with 165 points, trailed only F-M (64 points) and Bolles, from Jacksonville, Florida, who had 122 points.
Behind Schulz, Sydney Carlson gained 22nd place in 15:28.1, while Gabby McCarthy was 37th in 16:03.9. Eighth-grader Addyson Graham got 48th place in 16:15.3 as Eva Woodworth (16:19.4) was 52nd. Kara Nash (16:50.0) and Kaleigh Buck (17:12.2) also ran well.
In the boys Eastern States race, Liverpool was 12th out of 20 teams with 365 points, this despite a pair of top-25 individual efforts from Carter Rodriguez, who was 17th in 12:54.4, and Jake McGowan, who was 24th in 13:08.1.
Every other Warriors runner finished outside the top 100, Ryan Hagan doing the best of them as he posted 14:07.6, seven spots ahead of Charlie Praschunus (14:12.0), with Ethan Glashauser (14:20.9) beating out Ryan Fennelly (14:25.2) and Miguel Gonzalez posting 15:14.7.
Meanwhile, C-NS was victorious in the girls Varsity C race, earning 43 points, well clear of the 72 points from runner-up Walter Johnson (Maryland) as Baldwinsville finished sixth.
Leading the way, Kate Putman needed a time of 14:51.5 to finish second behind Walter Johnson’s Jenna Goldberg (14:31.0), while Marissa Navarra made her way to sixth place in 15:51.1.
Allison Newton got ninth place in 16:02.8 as Hannah Reichard was 12th in 16:10.2 and Gabby Putman was 14th in 16:13.8. Morgan Kingdeski had a 17th-place clocking of 16:28.6 and Abbee Norris (17:03.0) was 32nd.
The C-NS boys had to settle for an eighth-place finish in the 26-team Varsity C race, paced by Matt LeClair, who made his way to 24th place in a clocking of 13:42.8.
R.J. Davis finished 48th in 13:58 flat, with Josh Koeppe 54th in 14:07.1 and Evan Romano needing 14:12.6 to grab 60th place. Zach Bergman, in a time of 14:24.9, was ahead of Jacob Schmid (14:44.9) and Evan Breitbeck (14:52.4).
C-NS and Liverpool both sends runners to this Wednesday’s Salt City Athletic Conference championships at Baldwinsville.
