CENTRAL NEW YORK – Now the cross country teams of Fayetteville-Manlius will start to make their post-season preparations, hoping it all leads to another Nike Cross Nationals appearance.
Before that, though, both sets of Hornets joined Jamesville-DeWitt. East Syracuse Minoa and Christian Brothers Academy as they all ran in last Friday’s Chittenango Bears Twilight Invitational.
Claiming both Varsity 1 races, the F-M girls had Hannah Kaercher prevail in 17 minutes, 57.8 seconds, with Izzy Sullivan second in 18:12.3.
All told, the Hornets had seven of the top eight spots, Isabella Adrian getting fourth place in 19:23.9 ahead of Amelia Amack (19:28.3), Debbie Lucchetti (19:50.6), Maria Khalifeh (20:23.3) and Camille Ryan (20:54.3).
ESM’s Rachael Ladd made it to 10th place in 21:35.3, with Cora Gilbert pacing J-D as she was 16th in 23:03.1, one spot ahead of CBA’s Mary Sullivan (23:24.6), who led her side.
And though F-M won the boys Varsity 1 race, it was CBA’s Michael McMahon prevailing in 17:02.7 to the 17:11.7 from the Hornets’ Will Seamans.
But Seamans led an F-M pack that included Nolan McGinn (17:14.5), Daniel Patrick (17:16.4), Anthony Otis (17:32.8) and Ben Perry (17:44.1), with Cooper Groat seventh for CBA in 17:46.8 ahead of Joe McMahon’s 17:47.3.
F-M met up with Liverpool and Nottingham last Wednesday at Long Branch Park, where in the girls race the Hornets would prevail 15-46 over the state no. 12-ranked Warriors and the boys would have a closer contest, but still prevail 22-35.
A top-five girls sweep was again led by Kaercher, who in 19:06.1 edged Sullivan’s 19:06.4 as Amack finished third in 19:10.9. Lucchetti was fourth in 19:55.1 and Adrian nabbed fifth place in 20:06.1. Ryan then matched the 20:36.8 put up by the top Warriors runner, Addyson Graham.
No one on the F-M boys side could match the 16:30.7 from Liverpool’s Ryan Hagan, but Otis finished second in 17:08.7, closely followed by McGinn (17:13.2) and Patrick (17:16.1) as Seamans was sixth in 17:24.7 and Perry (17:42.9) finished seventh. Mason Wieres (18:11.2) edged Cooper Dereszynski (18:14.0) for 10th place.
Meanwhile, J-D and ESM went head-to-head last Wednesday, with the Red Rams sweeping both parts of the meet while both sides were able to sweep Fulton.
Ranked no. 8 in the state in Class B, the J-D boys rolled past ESM 15-48 and Fulton 15-49 with the six quickest times of the race, led by James Hillers, who won in 18:42 to Ashton Corona’s 18:48.
Hudson Groat got to third place in 18:59, with Sam Smith fourth in 19:11. Anthony Cawley (19:19) held off Nate Baurey (19:23) in fifth place as Tom Walters, in 19:31, beat out John Courcy (19:39) to finish tops among ESM runners, the Spartans topping Fulton 21-40 to salvage a split.
The J-D girls, with the no. 17 state Class B rankings, topped ESM and Fulton by equal 20-43 margins, even though the Spartans’ Rachael Ladd won the individual race in 21:45.
Gilbert paced the Rams, getting second place in 22:47, with Molly McIntyre third in 23:08. Nicky Milliti was fourth in 23:17, beating out Megan O’Malley (23:19) for that spot as Maddie Carter (23:45) edged Katelyn Huegel (23:46) and Anna Smith (24:04) was ahead of the 24:05 from the Spartans’ Elena Vespi.
CBA swept last Tuesday’s meet against Homer, with the boys race won by Groat as he and Joe McMahon pulled away, each finishing in 17:06 as Michael McMahon finished third in 18:40.
In the girls meet, Bella Cannizzo finished second in 20:48 to the 20:37 from Homer’s Emma Anderson, but CBA swept the next six spots, led by Kristina Kennedy, who posted 22:46 ahead of Sullivan’s 22:55. Abby Nash finished in 23:52 and Eve Oakes posted 24:20.
Bishop Grimes had its boys team sweep past Mater Dei Academy and Syracuse Academy of Science. Even with a 24-33 defeat to Weedsport, the Cobras’ Sean Moran won the race in 19 minutes flat to Landon Kepple’s 19:14 as Jake Lambert finished third in 22:19.
