BALDWINSVILLE – For much of the 21st century, the Baldwinsville boys cross country team had to sit and take a constant series of defeats at the hands – and arms and legs – of Fayetteville-Manlius as it built a national championship dynasty.
All of this made the Bees’ 26-31 win over the Hornets uesday at Durgee Junior High School even sweeter, B’ville relying on the front-running of Solomon Holden-Betts and its depth to record a landmark victory.
Holden-Betts dueled up front with the Hornets’ Nolan McGinn, just like they had done in the Large School division of the Sept. 24 Baldwinsville Invitational where McGinn took top honors.
Here, though, Holden-Betts, using his home-course knowledge, powered home in 15 minutes, 19.6 seconds, well clear of McGinn’s second-place 15:25.4.
After F-M’s Anthony Otis (15:46.8) took third, it was Noah Covert making his way to fourth place in 16:41.2, ahead of the 16:52.3 from the Hornets’ Ben Perry in fifth place.
Then the Bees won it by placing the next four runners, starting with Jeff Ragonese, who led a pack in red and white as he got to sixth place in 17:24.2.
Close behind Ragonese, Arthur Bauer finished seventh in 17:28.5, with Jack McAllister gaining eighth place in 17:31.2 and Ryan Wilson, ninth in 17:38.2, helping to clinch the Bees’ winning effort. Paul Clark (17:56.1), Kyle Sheckler (18:01.1) and Ryan Quinn (18:14.8) also posted top-10 finishes.
B’ville also swept past Cicero-North Syracuse 15-50 in this three-team event, with no Northstars runner faring better than the 17:55.9 put up by Tyler Graham.
Meanwhile, in the girls race between these three large schools, B’ville was able to beat C-NS 19-41 largely because the Northstars, who on Sept. 24 beat F-M in the Large School team portion of at the Baldwinsville Invitational, rested its top runners in between two large-scale meets.
The Bees still lost 16-47 to the Hornets, who had the top four individual finishers led by Hannah Kaercher, who finished in 18:08.8.
Freshman Kamryn Barton got fifth place in 19:48.2, with Mary Sabatino ninth in 21:25.6, just ahead of Sophia Cavalieri’s 21:26.1. Yolanda Wei, in 21:30 flat, was ahead of Clare Horan (22:03.5), Margaret Solomon (22:08.3) and Brianna Grosso (22:47.5).
Now both of B’ville’s teams would go to the Manhattan College Cross Country Invitational, held at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.
The boys Bees ran in the featured Eastern States Championship, where Holden-Betts would run 2.5 miles in exactly 12 minutes, 32 seconds and finish fifth out of 194 runners.
As a team, B’ville wasa 18th out of 27 sides, with Covert, in 13:55.5, running ahead of Bauer (14:08.7), Sheckler (14:24.6), McAllister (14:29.5), Wilson (14:37.1) and Ragonese (16:00.6).
B’ville’s girls ran in the Varsity ‘B’ race and finished seventh out of 21 teams, with Barton getting to 16th place in 16:18.5. Cavalieri was 33rd among team runners in 17:07.8 (17:22.5). Sabatino (17:57.0), Solomon (18:22.5), Horan (18:27.5) and Grosso (18:27.7) ran close together.
