EAST SYRACUSE – Though it proved quite exciting and close, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls cross country team emerged victorious from Wednesday’s Salt City Athletic Conference championship meet.
East Syracuse Minoa hosted the meet at its Pine Grove Junior High School course, where the Hornets edged Cicero-North Syracuse, 39 points to 42, in the Metro division and took the overall crown with 52 points to the 59 from both C-NS and Auburn.
All of it started with Izzie Sullivan, who had won the ESM Invitational on this same course back in September and, a month later, went 17 minutes 55.4 seconds to pull away from Auburn’s Kyleen Brady (18:18.6) and the rest of the field.
Camille Ryan made her way to sixth place in 19:26.4 and Jordan Giannetti was close behind, landing in seventh place in 19:27.5 as Sullivan, Ryan and Giannetti were in the top five of the SCAC Metro field.
Still, it took Evie Pinkerton recording a 17th-place time of 20:07.4 and Claire McDonald going 20:43.2 to clinch F-M’s twin team victories over C-NS, who had five of the top 15 efforts in the team standings but none better than Kennedy Jones’ 19:44.2 that barely got her into the top 10.
F-M’s boys finished third in the SCAC Metro division behind C-NS and Baldwinsville and fourth overall, with Will Ditre pacing the Hornets as he got to fifth place in 16:32.4, not far from the winning 16:08.8 of Auburn’s Austin Ferrin.
Kevin Heller, in 16:54.3, was one spot behind Ditre, while Freddy Hunt finished 27th on the team side (28th overall) in 18:17.4. Ben Prendergast’s 18:37.4 beat out the 18:55.4 from Alex Domaszczynski and 18:59.2 from Eliot Elbayadi.
Moving to the SCAC Empire division meet, the ESM girls finished second with 50 points, only trailing Auburn’s winning 17, as Jamesville-DeWitt got fourth place with 100 points.
Individually, the Spartans’ Rachael Burt got fourth place among Empire runners posting 19:57.5 on her hom e course, more than a minute ahead of Jaelyn Jordan’s 20:59.1 in seventh place as Abigail Burt was 10th in 21:24.4 beating Laila Thomas (22:38.5) and Danika Besig, whose 23:39.4 edged Emily Clonan’s 23:39.6.
On the Red Rams’ side, Emma Rukavena was 11th in the Empire race in 21:38.7, with Rebecca Mendez Squier 12th in 22:14.8. Rachel Pettiford (25:34.0) and Gretchen Kirch (25:52.0) had the only other times under the 26-minute mark.
ESM and J-D tied for fourth in the boys SCAC Empire race, each with 110 points, with Ryan Carter 10th among those runners in 18:05.1 to pace the Red Rams.
Elijah Evelyn, in 18:29.77, beat out Brandon Cerlanek (18:35.3) for ESM’s best time as Bryce Oviedo, in 18:51.1, was the only other Spartans runner under the 20-minute mark. J-D’s Peter Drew was 17th in the Empire race in 19:02.5 and Paul Fischi (19:49.4) was close behind, Zach Lapidus going 20:01.8.
