Through most of their respective regular seasons, cross country teams from Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool mostly ran in nice temperatures on dry courses under generous amounts of sunshine.
That was not the case, though, for Wednesday’s Salt City Athletic Conference championships at Baldwinsville. A steady, hard rain churned up mud for all of the 14 SCAC teams to deal with.
In both the girls and boys races, the Northstars and Warriors battled hard for second place in the overall and SCAC Metro races, with state Class A no. 1-ranked Fayetteville-Manlius finishing on top on each side.
And it was C-NS, who had risen to no. 5 in those state rankings, getting the best of state no. 4-ranked Liverpool in the girls race, the Northstars getting 48 points to the Warriors’ 49 in the Metro division race and 58 points to 61 overall.
Individually, Liverpool’s Jenna Schulz remained the standout, her time of 18 minutes, 18.1 seconds in the rain on the Durgee Junior High School course topped only by the 18:03.2 from F-M’s Claire Walters.
What made the 1-2 finish between the long-time rivals even more special was Schulz’s announcement last week that she would join Walters in attending North Carolina State University next fall.
After F-M swept the rest of the top five, C-NS freshman Kate Putman got sixth place in 19:12.6, while fellow ninth-grader Marissa Navarra claimed ninth place in 20:07 flat and Allison Newton was 11th in 20:25.4.
Those times, along with Gabby Putman taking 13th place in 20:32.3 and Marissa Doty finishing 19th in 21:00.5, helped C-NS withstand Liverpool’s own fine efforts as Hannah Reichard, 21st in 21:06.5, was five spots ahead of Morgan Kingdeski’s 21:19.2 as Abbee Norris finished in 21:25 flat.
Sydney Carlson, in 20:19.2, got 10th place for the Warriors, while eighth-grader Addyson Graham was 12th in 20:31.5. Gabby McCarthy finished 17th in 20:42.2 and Kaleigh Buck was 20th in 21:02.9. Eva Woodworth gained 22nd place in 21:10.3 and Kara Nash finished in 21:26.7. Charlotte Warner (21:41.1) beat out Lauren Purvis (21:42.8) for 34th place.
The scoring in the boys race provided mixed results. Overall, C-NS had 87 points to Liverpool’s 88, but among the SCAC Metro teams it was the Warriors two points better than the Northstars, 76-78.
Liverpool did have the top individual finish, from Jake McGowan, who ran through the rain to get sixth place in 16:34.2, less than a minute behind the winning 15:44.8 from F-M’s Sam Otis, who led a 1-2-3 Hornets sweep of individual honors.
To pace C-NS, R.J. Davis got 11th place in 17:01.1, two spots ahead of the 17:12.1 from Matt LeClair, while Evan Romano, who was 20th in 17:42.3, led a run of three Northstars that included Josh Koeppe (17:42.3) and Zach Bergman (17:43.0), while Evan Breitbeck was 34th in 18:14.7, four spots ahead of Jacob Schmid’s 18:25.4
Behind McGowan, Liverpool had Carter Rodriguez make his way to 14th place in 17:14.3, with Ryan Hagan 16th in 17:23.8. Ethan Glashauser, getting 25th place in 17:50.3, was two spots ahead of Ryan Cartwright (17:54.1) as Ryan Fennelly finished in 18:28.2 and Jack Sherlock posted 18:41.8.
Some of Liverpool’s runners went to Saturday’s Weedsport Invitational, where the girls Warriors were second to Beaver River as Meghan Moyer had a seventh-place time of 22:23.4 and Carly Ross was 10th in 22:54.2. Morgan Reale (24:25.5) and Eva Facci (25:17.9) also had top-30 finishes.
In the boys race at Weedsport, Liverpool’s Miguel Gonzalez finished 22nd in the race in 19:32.6, two spots ahead of Jack Sherlock (19:37.1) as Matt Russo was 30th in 20:07.8.
