by Kurt Wheeler
CAZENOVIA – The Cazenovia girls capped a stellar regular season with two more wins at last Wednesday’s senior meet to close out the campaign undefeated at 13-0.
With their last originally scheduled home meet all the way back on Sept. 14 during week two of the season, the Lakers added a non-league contest at the end of the season to have a more fitting Senior Night.
Cincinnatus and DeRuyter made the trip to a frigid Fenner course with temperatures in the 30s and wind chills in the 20s for the race.
Cazenovia overcame the challenging conditions to run some of their best times of the season as they seized the top five places against both foes for perfect 15 point scores.
Olivia Ruddy led the Lakers, as she has all season, with a 20 minute, 30-second effort over the rugged 3.0 mile route. Dinah Gifford achieved a 30-second personal record on the course with a time of 20:53 to earn second place and a speed rating of 80, her best of the season.
Maeve McGreevy revealed her exceptional improvement over the past month with a 21:13, third-place result that was more than two minutes faster than her previous best.
Senior captain Faith Wheeler ran 21:38, close to her own best, to capture fourth place while Zoey Gagne (21:59) came in more than a minute ahead of her previous top time to take fifth and lock in the Lakers’ perfect score of 15 points for the double victory.
Freshman Haylee Stearns was a minute and a half under her previous best pace at 22:53 and senior captain Bonnie Pittman (23:18) also had a season best at 23:18 as they captured the sixth and seventh spots to displace all other scorers.
Olivia Wong (23:25) led the rest of the pack, including Sedona Millard, Ilsa Denton, Mesi Stevens and Emma O’Shea who all had strong races, to cap the Lakers’ regular season.
The unbeaten Cazenovia harriers will now turn their attention to the Onondaga High School Liberty Championship Meet next Wednesday at Marcellus, where they will attempt to repeat their first place performance from 2021.
On the horizon is the Section III Class C championships at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill on Nov. 5 where the girls will try to outrun the South Jefferson squad that edged them for the sectional title last year.
