It proved quite a Wednesday for area high school cross country teams, far beyond the fact that heavy rains brought challenging conditions for various key races.
Christian Brothers Academy completed a sweep of regular-season honors in the Onondaga High School League Liberty American division when they defeated Mexico, the boys first league title in 23 years.
They joined the CBA girls, who earned its fourth consecutive league title on the same day that star senior Olivia Morganti announced that she was attending the University of Pennsylvania.
Morganti led the state Class B no. 12-ranked CBA girls with her time of 20:11 against Mexico, more than two minutes ahead of Lea Kyle’s 22:32. Isabella Canizzo finished in 22:33 and Mia Kirch posted 23:43 as Abby Nash finished in 23:48.
The CBA boys, holding the no. 6 state Class C ranking, beat Mexico 16-44 as Cooper Groat won in 19:46. Zach Medicis, in 19:47, was just ahead of Michael McMahon (19:48) and Riley Nash (19:49) as Kyle Gaffney was sixth in 20:43.
Accolades and college announcements were also part of the day for Fayetteville-Manlius, aside from its expected sweep of the girls and boys titles during the Salt City Athletic Conference championships at Baldwinsville.
Two F-M stars made their college choices official. Phoebe White is joining Morganti at Penn, while Claire Walters is going to North Carolina State University – joined by her local rival and friend, Liverpool’s Jenna Schulz.
Once again, Walters claimed an individual race at Schulz’s expense, covering the muddy B’ville course in 18 minutes, 3.2 seconds to Schulz’s 18:18.1.
White, who finished in 18:42.3, was fourth, in between the 18:36 flat from Hannah Kaercher and the 18:55.4 from Grace Kaercher, who rounded out the top five. Amelia Amack was 15th in 20:37.1 as Fiona Mejico was 24th in 21:16.9 and Alexa Bolton posted 21:51.8, just ahead of Julia Sun’s 22:01.1.
F-M was even more direct in the boys SCAC race with a 1-2-3 sweep. Sam Otis won it, his time of 15:44.8 easily clear of Geoff Howles’ second-place 16:05.9 as Peyton Geehrer was third in 16:06.3.
Jack Altimonda, with a clocking of 16:57.9, gained ninth place as James Peden earned 10th place in 17:00.1. Daniel Patrick (17:27.7) and Owen Snyder (17:34.8) also finished within the individual top 20.
The SCAC Empire division race was also run at Baldwinsville, and the Jamesville-DeWitt boys won with 57 points as East Syracuse Minoa was second with 85 points, though it was the Spartans’ Nick Berg with the best individual time of 16:29.7, fifth overall and tops among league runners.
Nate Rindfuss led the Red Rams, third among SCAC Empire runners and 23rd overall in 17:48 flat. Then Ahviere Reese (18:24.9), Brian Hulbert (18:25.8), Ashton Corona (18:38.1), Collin Rivercomb (18:41.6) and Sam Smith (18:42.1) got the 12th through 16th spots in the league race to clinch that team title.
ESM could not quite match that standard, though Casey Engineri got seventh place among league runners and 31st overall in 18:11 flat, ahead of Spencer Carnival, 17th in the league race in 18:43.5, with Tom Walters (19:15.6) and John Courcy (19:42.6) following.
In the girls SCAC Empire race, J-D finished third and ESM fourth behind Central Square and Oswego. Rachael Ladd was 16th overall, and fourth among league runners, in 20:38.7, with Mary Roach (21:48.8) also in the league top 10 as, for the Rams, Megan O’Malley finished in 21:43.2 and Madeline Foss posted 21:54 flat.
When all this was done, CBA’s boys went to Saturday’s Chittenango Invitational and won it, McMahon taking the individual title in 16:52.1 over Hannibal’s Dillon Plantz (16:55.7) and the Brothers getting five of the top nine individual spots.
Nash, in 17:07 flat, claimed third place, with Medicis getting fifth place in 17:30 flat. Joel Gaffney, in 17:40 flat, beat out Groat (17:55.1) for eighth place as Kyle Gaffney posted 19:28.6.
The CBA girls finished fourth at Chittenango, led by Kyle, who got fourth place in 20:45.1. Cannizzo managed an eighth-place time of 21:26.7 as Kirch was 15th in 22:04 flat.
