ONONDAGA COUNTY – Few Baldwinsville school traditions of any sort can compare with the cross country invitational meet it hosts each fall, since the event dates back to the 1950s.
For the 72nd edition of this event on Saturday, top large and small schools again made their way to Durgee Junior High School, with the Bees again a contender in both large-school races.
In all, 16 teams were entered in the boys Varsity Large School race and B’ville finished second among them with 103 points, ahead of Cicero-North Syracuse (121), whom it lost to head-to-head earlier in the week.
Ithaca won with 27 points and went 1-2 among individuals with Noah Hilker winning in 15 minutes 48.9 seconds and Riley Hubisz (15:49.3) right behind him.
To lead the Bees, Jacob Guelli grabbed 13th place in 17:00.4, with Wyatt Decker 20th in 17:33.3. Liam McOmber (17:49.2), Ben Forman (17:49.6) and Logan Bolton (17:53.7)were within four places and less than five seconds of each other at the line.
B’ville’s girls team, even without Kamryn Barton in the lineup, finished fourth in its Large School race behind Auburn, C-NS and Fayetteville-Manlius, with Ella Defio making her way to 10th place in 19:57.2 as Ithaca’s Tsadia Bercuvitz, in 17:22.6, beat the field by more than a minute.
Yolanda Wei ran well, too, getting 14th place in 20:12.7, with Madalyn Donhauser grabbing 16th place in 20:17.5. Isabella Arria was 29th in 21:10.4 and Makayla Fowler (22:03.1) was two spots ahead of Mariah LeGrow (22:06.7).
Kn the Varsity Small School divisions the South Jefferson girls and Oneonta boys won team titles, with individual victories going to Oneida’s Molly Myatt (19:20.3) in the girls race and Chenango Valley’s Michael Doyle (16:21.3) in the boys race.
All of this followed Wednesday’s meet against C-NS at Oneida Shores, where the boys Bees’ win streak against the Northstars ended with a 24-33 defeat.
C-NS grabbed four of the top five individual spots, led by Rhett Andrews’ winning 17:13.9 and Tyler Graham’s second-place 17:35.1 that beat the 17:50.8 posted by Guelli in third place.
Then two more Northstars, Jack Putman (18:00.0) and Nolan Zinsmeyer (18:03.0), rounded out the top five ahead of a string of six Bees runners led by McOmber’s sixth-place 18:12.6.
Bolton, in 18:13.9, was close behind McOmber in seventh place. Decker went 18:22.2 to finish eighth as Forman was ninth (18:37.8) and Doug Clark 10th (18:40.1) ahead of London Premo’s 18:49.1 and Ethan Millard’s 18:52.2.
The girls race saw B’ville put up a good challenge against C-NS, only to lose by the exact same 24-33 margin.
Barton nearly won the individual race, her 19:49.8 just behind the winning 19:46 flat from the Northstars’ Gabby Putman as Donhauser gave the Bees a third-place clocking of 19:55.9.
The trio of Kennedy Jones (20:20.2), Cameron Sisk (20:31.5) and Katy Harbold (20:34.5) all beat Wei’s seventh-place 20:35.2, and two more C-NS runners were in front of Defio’s 20:55.3 as Fowler (22:17.4) and Arria (22:17.5) hit the finish line together ahead of Legrow in 22:38.1.
Another big week waits B’ville with a meet Wednesday against visiting Liverpool before going to the massive McQuaid Invitational in Rochester on Saturday.
