by Kurt Wheeler

CAZENOVIA – The Cazenovia girls cross country team earned a hard-fought 27-29 victory over Skaneateles Wednesday to open their league season 1-0.

By doing so, Cazenovia also retained the prized “Laker Cup” with the win. The cup is a traveling trophy that resides with the winner of the most recent dual meet in spring track and cross country. The current win was the ninth in a row for the “Eastern Lakers” dating back to the fall of 2018.

The two Laker programs have been among the top small schools in track and cross country for the past 20 years and their match-ups are a highlight each season.

Cazenovia entered this week’s contest with the added challenge of missing two of their runners to illness while Skaneateles had no margin for error with only five harriers on their team this fall.

Despite an early challenge from Olivia Ruddy, Skaneateles staked out the first two places in the race as Lucy Fleckenstein (20:40) and Tobi DiRubbo (21:11) both ran fast times on Cazenovia’s rugged, muddy 4,800 meter Fenner Road course.

Ruddy (21:30) led a wave of “Eastern Lakers” with Maeve McGreevy (21:42) and Zoey Gagne (21:50) all running season best times to keep the contest close.

Caroline McSwain (22:39) earned the sixth place overall to give Skaneateles 9-12 advantage early on, placing added pressure on the remainder of Cazenovia’s pack.

With their usual #4 teammate, Olivia Wong, out of the line-up for day, Haylee Stearns and Lauren McLean stepped up to meet the challenge.

Stearns (22:59) earned seventh place overall and McLean (23:09) outkicked Skaneateles’ Anabel Wells (23:12) over the final 300 meters to place eighth and lock in the winning total of 27 points for Cazenovia.

Wells had edged McLean by six seconds just five days earlier at the Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Invitational. Stearns and McLean both turned in their best times of the fall for the team.

Mesi Stevens was also outstanding, grinding out a tough race to earn 10th place and displace Skaneateles final scorer (Monica Pohl, 25:18) to ensure her team’s win as she pushed the opponent’s total to 29 points.

Stevens’ season best time of 24:49 flipped the script on Pohl who had beaten her by 45 seconds when they ran at VVS. Emma O’Shea (27:06) was seventh for Cazenovia with Ilsa Denton  (27:19) close behind while Michaela Tobin, Savannah Randall and Alison Morse all ran personal best times to close out the team’s winning effort.