VERONA – Though it wasn’t quite the same as it was in 2022, Baldwinsville’s cross country program still left last Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class A championships at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill with plenty to be proud of.
The Bees had three runners in the field – sophomore Kamryn Barton on the girls side, seniors Noah Covert and Ryan Wilson were on the boys side.
All of them drew inspiration from what happened 12 months earlier on this same VVS course, B’ville’s Solomon Holden-Betts capping his high school career with an individual NYSPHSAA state title.
Still, they could not quite produce the same result, though Barton was able to record a top-30 individual finish and helped Section III to a fourth-place team finish.
In exactly 19 minutes, 36 seconds, Barton could not quite match the 19:21.8 when she finished second at the Section III meet at VVS a week earlier, but still took 30th place.
Of the sectional all-stars, only Liverpool’s Taylor Page, in 19th place (19:18.7) beat out Barton. Page’s teammate, Kaitlyn Hotaling,
finished 32nd, with Auburn’s Mary Alice Pineau 37th and Cicero-North Syracuse’s Kennedy Jones in 43rd place. Saratoga Springs’ Emily Bush was the state individual champion in 17:34.3 and led Saratoga to a team title, too.
The boys state Class A race followed, and as Fayetteville-Manlius standout Nolan McGinn won the state title in 15:48.7 to succeed Holden-Betts, Covert and Wilson helped Section III finish third in the team event.
Covert finished 45th overall in a clocking of 16:58.2, while Wilson made his way to 76th place in 17:30.9. Like Barton, neither of them were as quick as they were at the sectional meet.
Aside from McGinn’s victory and the work of Covert and Wilson, Section III’s All-Stars also had Liverpool’s Brady Ruediger take 22nd place and Central Square’s Charles Raymond get 60th place.
