VERONA – With plenty of talent on hand and expectations borne out of plenty of recent success, each of the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool cross country teams began a new season with clean sweeps at Saturday’s Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Invitational.
On the same VVS course where the Section III championships will take place in November, the girls Northsars, led by Kate Putman, were victorious in the Varsity 2 races in the morning session and, a half-hour later, the C-NS boys finished in front, too.
Going first on a sunny Saturday morning, the girls race featured Putman starting her junior campaign with a solid race and a time of 19 minutes, 27.7 seconds, just ahead of the 19:36 flat from South Lewis star Brynn Bernard.
To help the Northstars (35 points) pull away from the Falcons (63 points) and the rest of the nine-team field, freshman Gabby Putman made her way to fourth place in 19:53.4 and Marissa Navarra got fifth place in 20:07.4.
Cameron Sisk, finishing 13th in 21:43.6, led the next C-NS pack as Kate Capone was 14th in 21:51.4 and Katy Harbold grabbed 15th place in 22:07.5. Hannah Reichard finished 20th in 22:56.9.
Though it was closer in the boys Varsity 2 race at VVS, the Northstars, picking up 42 points, held off Tully (63 points) and gained the top spot.
Gavin McAllister led C-NS, his time of 18:33.2 good for fifth place, though well off the winning 16:53.5 put up by South Lewis sophomore Collin Stafford.
Sophomore Ashton Murdock, in a clocking of 18:36.8, was sixth, right behind McAllister, with Nathan Connors getting eighth place in 18:51.4 and James McConnell ninth in 19:02.6. Justin Asch, who was 14th in 19:49.9, beat out Jake Roman (19:50.1) and Aaron Dunn (19:53.0) for that spot.
Then it was time for the afternoon Varsity 3 races at VVS, and Liverpool, led by Ryan Hagan on the boys side and Eva Woodworth on the girls side, won both events.
The boys Warriors picked up 38 points to runner-up Jamesville-DeWitt’s 60, and Hagan was, by far, the quickest runner in this race, his 16:48.8 nearly a full minute ahead of the Red Rams’ Alex Martinez (17:47.4) in second place.
Sophomore Gavin Kenna emerged in a big way, taking fourth place in 18:05.8, with Jack Sherlock sixth in 18:13 flat. Michael Purvis just missed the top 10, but was 11th in 18:38.0 as Jacob Makhlouf finished 16th among team runners (17th overall) in 18:58.0. Austin Ziegler (19:25.8) and Andrew Corrigan (19:41.3) were also in the top 30.
Moving to the girls race, Liverpool had 39 points, easily clear of Rome Free Academy (65 points) in the second spot as Woodworth posted a third-place time of 20:46.5 behind the winning 18:43.4 from RFA’s Emily Toth-Ratazzi.
Addyson Graham provided further depth for the Warriors as she finished seventh in 22:09.3, just ahead of Meghan Moyer, who was eighth in 22:19 flat. Addison Ziegler (22:44.6) gave Liverpool a fourth top-10 finisher and Taylor Page was 12th in the team race (15th overall) in 23:16.5, ahead of Morgan Reale (24:32.1) and Addison Miles (24:49.6).
