Halloween morning brought forth some terrific cross country races in the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division, with Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse both putting together memorable performances.
In the Warriors’ case, the boys nearly upended the reigning state Class A champion Hornets ,but fell just short as F-M pulled out a 26-29 decision.
Ryan Hagan led Liverpool’s efforts, at the front of the pack that chased the Hornets’ Peyton Geehrer as Geehrer won in 16 minutes, 16 seconds.
With a time of 17:01, Hagan was clear of F-M’s Daniel Patrick (17:13), who was third, while Ryan Cartwright made his way to fourth place in 17:19 and Jake McGowan finished fifth in 17:29.
F-M would then have Jackson Mathews (also in 17:29) and Anthony Otis (17:57) snag the next two spots, plus Trevor Kurkin in ninth place (18:21) to clinch it.
Still, the Warriors had many fine runs as Gavin Kenna was eighth in 18:14, with Jack Sherlock 10th in 18:27. Charlie Praschunus, in 18:49, was just ahead of Jacob Makhlouf (19:02) and Aiden Meyer (19:07).
Recent girls races between Liverpool and F-M had featured future North Carolina State teammates Jenna Schulz and Claire Walters, with Schulz helping the Wolfpack to the Atlantic Coast Conference title last week.
In this race, the Warriors lost 15-48 to the Hornets, who had Hannah Kaercher, in 19:08, lead a top-five sweep before Gabby McCarthy got sixth place for Liverpool in 20:27.
Eva Woodworth, ninth in 21:17, was the Warriors’ only other top-10 finisher. Kaleigh Buck, in 21:47, led a pack that included Lauren Purvis (22:04), Meghan Moyer (22:14), Addison Ziegler (22:18) and Taylor Page (22:59).
As for C-NS, it hosted West Genesee at Oneida Shores, and breezed to wins on both sides of the meet in advance of their own showdown with F-M this Saturday.
During the girls Northstars’ 17-43 victory, Kate Putman again ran away from her teammates, her time of 18:32 nearly a full minute ahead of Marissa Navarra’s second-place 19:31.
Allison Newton, in 20:40, edged Kate Capone (20:44) as they completed a top-four C-NS sweep. Hannah Reichard was sixth in 21:47, with Cameron Sisk seventh in 22:12. Erin Slusser (22:56) was 10th and Peyton Empey 11th in 23:22.
The boys race saw C-NS win 23-37, where Matt LeClair finished second in 17:10, well behind the winning 16:45 from WG’s Peter McMahon, while Evan Romano got third place in 17:23.
Jacob Schmidt, who was fifth in 18:03, led a quartet of Northstars as Edwin Hirsch got sixth place in 18:09, ahead of Zach Bergman (18:26) and Ashton Murdock (18:36). Owen Greco (19:18) beat out Aidan Thompson (19:45) for 10th place.
