ONONDAGA COUNTY – Something rare happened last weekend – the Fayetteville-Manlius girls cross country team was defeated by an opponent within the Section III ranks.
Having dominated local competition for so long, the Hornets were caught and passed by Cicero-North Syracuse at the 70th annual Baldwinsville Invitational, hinting at more showdowns between these two sides.
Up front, the duel was between Izzie Sullivan and Kate Putman, and the F-M sophomore got away to win in 17 minutes, 30.2 seconds to Putman’s 17:41.4.
Then Hannah Kaercher got to third place in 18:12.4, but Gabby Putman was fourth (18:27.1) for the Northstars and, more importantly, Hannah Boyle was eighth (18:56.6) and Marissa Navarra ninth (18:59.5) ahead of the Hornets’ Camille Ryan (19:06.5) in 10th place.
Though Isabella Adrian (19:51.5) and Maria Khalifeh (19:51.6) got the 16th and 17th spots, respectively, Harbold followed them and, when she finished 18th in 20:01.5, C-NS had the victory.
Meanwhile, in the boys B’ville meet, F-M’s Nolan McGinn was the individual champion, his 15:22.4 well clear of the 15:35.6 from the host Bees’ Solomon Holden-Betts.
Overall, the Hornets got fourth place behind Fairport, Ithaca and Burnt Hills, with McGinn the only top-10 finisher for his side as Anthony Otis was 11th in 16:44.1, Ben Perry was 14th (16:53.8) and no other F-M runner cracked the top 40.
Before all this, Kaercher and Sullivan led F-M to a clean sweep of last Wednesday’s three-sided meet with Liverpool and Henninger.
Kaercher was victorious in 15:53.3, just ahead of Sullivan’s 15:53.4 as Khalifeh was third in 16:13.1. Adrian (16:31.8) and Ryan (16:45.8) completed the scoring column.
In fact, F-M had a top 11 runners in the field as Catherine Walters, sixth in 17:17.3, led Ava Beecher, Charlotte Knutsen, Rheaa Goyal, Bella Umina and Claire McDonald ahead of the best Liverpool time of 18:53.8 from Meghan Moyer and 18:53.9 from Addison Ziegler.
F-M’s boys team had a tougher race with Liverpool, but prevailed 17-38 as it also topped Henninger 15-47.
Otis went 13:36.4 to finish just ahead of McGinn’s 13:36.8 on F-M’s 2.5-mile course. Perry was third in 14:03.2, and while the Warriors’ Michael Purvis was fourth in 14:52.6, Kyler Patrick (14:54.0) and William Ditre (14:56.8) took the next two spots for the Hornets.
Jamesville-DeWitt saw its boys team sweep its own three-team meet last Wednesday, topping Central Square 19-42 and shutting out Cortland 15-50.
Hudson Groat, in 19:09, won it for the Red Rams, edging the Redhawks’ Kenzie Rumo (19:10) at the finish line. Peter Drew, third in 20:02, led a J-D group that included Isaiah Sternberg (20:06), Ryan Carter (20:24) and Chris Donoghue, who was one second behind Drew.
Another sweep was earned by J-D’s girls, who topped Central Square 25-34 while also routing Cortland 15-51.
Making up for a 1-2 individual finish from the Redhawks’ Kadence Williams and Saige Hayden, Molly McIntyre led the pack of Rams, finishing third in 23:24.
Megan O’Malley was fourth, in 23:45, with Megan Reddy (24:50), Rebecca Mendez-Squier (26:18) and Nicole Militi (27:01) fitting into the next three spots. Neve Gordon (28:15) edged Devan Miller (28:17) for ninth place.
Christian Brothers Academy lost its boys race 23-36 to Chittenango as Joe McMahon’s 18:31 trailed the 18:20 from the Bears’ Caleb LeBlanc. Charlie Raymond was third in 19:05 as Matt Craybas, in 21:59, was the Brothers’ only other top-10 finisher.
CBA’s girls had a 20-41 defeat to Chittenango, but again had the individual winner as Mary Sullivan’s 22:15 easily beat out the 22:39 from the Bears’ Laura Powers. Adele Sommers finished seventh in 24:47, with Abby Nash 10th in 25:13.
