ONONDAGA COUNTY – Cross country teams from Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse wrapped up their respective regular-season meet schedule against Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division foes while the conditions remained warm and dry.
Of all the sides, the Liverpool boys proved best in terms of rolling to a 17-46 victory over West Genesee in a three-team meet where, against host and defending sectional Class A champion Auburn, it fell 21-34 to the Maroons.
Individually, Brady Ruediger posted 17 minutes, 21 seconds, a time only topped by the 17:13.1 from Auburn’s Ryan Maher. Then the Maroons swept the rest of the top five to secure the sweep of the Warriors and Wildcats.
Roman Murray finished sixth in 17:45.2, with Joshua Vang seventh in 17:54.2. Nate Aurello, in 18:41.3, led a quartet of Liverpool runners that included Davis Farrell (18:50.1), Andrew Corrigan (18:58.7) and Donovan Niedzwiecki (19:00.8).
In the girls race, Liverpool lost on both sides, a 23-32 defeat to Auburn and a 28-28 decision with West Genesee where the Wildcats’ sixth runner, Thalie Petrie (23:13.3), beat the 24:20.2 from the Warriors’ Chloe Ryan.
Ahead of them, Taylor Page was third in 20:37 flat behind Auburn’s Kyleen Brady (19:36.7) and Mary Alice Pineau (20:13.4), while Kaitlyn Hotaling was fifth in 21:16.2. Kailyn Barth finished ninth in 22:18.9, with Charlotte Warner 12th in 22:37.3 and Paige Baker posting 23:24.9 amid a crowd of six WG runners.
C-NS was at its home course at Oneida Shores, hosting Fayetteville-Manlius and Baldwinsville, and both the girls and boys teams would earn splits.
On the girls side, it was the Northstars prevailing 23-32 over the Bees largely because eighth-grader Kennedy Jones, in 19:53.7, and Katy Harbold, in 20:11.2, were second and third among individuals, respectively, behind F-M’s Camille Ryan (19:35.7).
But the Hornets swept the next five spots in order to beat C-NS 23-35, though Cameron Sisk, in 22:03.4, pulled out a top-10 finish as Sophia Graham (22:44.4), Elliana Ballagh (23:02.2) and Haley Drinkwine (23:11.4) all followed.
In the boys case, it was C-NS defeating F-M 25-36 and taking a 17-43 loss to B’ville, with Tyler Graham and Rhett Andrews leading the way for the Northstars.
Graham, in a time of 17:54.4, finished seventh, edging out Andrews (17:54.6) for that spot, though they all trailed the winning 16:18.7 from F-M standout Nolan McGinn.
Nolan Zinsmeyer, in 18:16.5, finished just outside the top 10, with Dominic Petrera getting to 13th place in 18:19 flat ahead of Joe Massett (18:21.9), Evan Champ (18:24.9) and Braden Santaguida’s 19:08 flat.
Liverpool competed again Saturday at the Tully Invitational and experienced the season’s first rain and mud, but romped right through it to win the boys large school division and finish second overall on both sides to Mexico (boys) and Chittenango (girls).
Michael Hoey led the boys Warriors, taking 13th place overall in 18:45 flat, while Ian Sherlock, in 18:45.6, edged out Teagan Wilbur (18:48.7) for 15th place. Noah Arnold (19:01.3) and Brian Juston (19:07.1) closely followed.
Addison Ziegler was the fastest Liverpool girls runner at Tully, finishing 10th in 22:09.2 as she was one spot ahead of Rose Piorkowski (22:09.3) in 11th place. Chloe Ryan took 12th place in 22:24.6 and Gianna Gallelli was 13th in 22:34.8.
