BALDWINSVILLE – November is always the most important month for the Fayetteville-Manlius cross country teams, who will both try to defend their respective Section III Class A titles when the sectional meet takes place at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill.
But neither Hornets side would prevail at Wednesday’s Salt City Athletic Conference championships, with the girls second to Cicero-North Syracuse and the boys a runner-up to the hosts from Baldwinsville.
F-M’s girls did not have reigning state individual champion Izzie Sullivan in the lineup, Sullivan having won on this same course when it raced against C-NS in the Sept. 24 Baldwinsville Invitaitonal.
With the Putman sisters, Marissa Navarra and Sophia Graham all in the individual top 15 still finished with 46 points to the Hornets’ 59 to lead the overall standings as Kate Putman (17:30.3) and Gabby Putman (17:51.9) finished 1-2 on an individual basis.
Hannah Kaercher led F-M, going 18 minutes, 42 seconds to finish fourth overall (third in the Metro division), while Isabella Adrian was ninth in 19:17.4 and Camille Ryan 10th in 19:17.6.
Maria Khalifeh made her way to 14th place in 19:44.9, with Catherine Walters 22nd among team runners (23rd overall) in 20:30.9 as Charlotte Knutsen (20:46.3) and Julia Gorman (21:24.9) followed.
Meanwhile, in the SCAC boys meet F-M’s Anthony Otis went 15:35.8 on the Durgee Junior High School course and Nolan McGinn went 15:40.1, beating everyone except B’ville’s Solomon Holden-Betts, who won in 15:27.4.
Ben Perry got to 13th place overall in 17:02.4, but the Hornets, with 54 points, still finished second to the Bees’ total of 50 as its fourth and fifth runners finished ahead of Kyler Patrick (17:37.3) and Mason Weires (17:44.0).
The SCAC Empire meet also took place at B’ville and Jamesville-DeWitt, led by Connor Clarkson, was second with 54 points to Auburn, who not only won with 19 points but took the overall race over B’ville and F-M, too.
Clarkson’s 16:51.6 was second among Empire division runners behind the Maroons’ Chris Howard (16:31.0) and 10th overall, while Hudson Groat was seventh in the league in 17:33.7.
Chris Donaghue, in 18:30.4, beat out Paul Fischi (18:32.6) for 17th place in the league standings, both of them just ahead of Isaiah Sternberg’s 18:50.7 and Ryan Carter’s 19:06.1.
East Syracuse Minoa finished fourth in the boys league race, led by John Courcy, who was 12th in the league standings (51st overall) in 18:19.6, just ahead of Brandon Cerlanek’s 18:23.4. Further back, Joe Podroso-Garcia posted 19:15.4, ahead of Bryce Oviedo (19:22.4) and Elijah Evelyn (19:29.0).
The girls SCAC race had J-D finish third behind Auburn and Central Square, with the Red Rams seeing all of its individuals finish within the league top 20.
Molly McIntyre led them, going 22:23.5 to finish 11th, ahead of a 22:39.7 from Megan O’Malley. Meghana Reddy posted 22:57.6 as Nicolette Militi, in 23:09.4, beat out Norah Kirch (23:15.0), Devan Miller (23:15.2) and Rebecca Mendez Squier, who posted 23:17.1.
On ESM’s side, Ainsley McKenna did best, making her way to ninth place among SCAC Empire runners in 22:11.5. Charlie Warner finished in 24:56.5 ahead of Becca Seargent (25:21.8), Lilla Pena (26:16.7) and Sadie Broderick (27:10.1).
