With a short trip up north, each of the Cicero-North Syracuse cross country teams began their long trek through the 2009 season. Both divisions of last Saturday’s Central Square Invitational turned into a duel between the Northstars and West Genesee, and it ended in a split. CNS would win on the boys side, gathering 37 points to the Wildcats’ 45, with the host Central Square Red Hawks far back in third place with 108 points. Chris Buchanan was the only runner to break the 17-minute mark, as his time of 16 minutes, 52 seconds beat WG’s Billy Gabriel (17:15) by 23 seconds. In all, the Northstars had five runners in the top 15. Alex Bottorff worked his way to fifth place, in 17:44, while Jared Walther earned seventh place in 17:50. Ken Ryan was 10th (17:56), as Eric Hart finished 14th (18:20) to round out the scoring chart. Robert Donadio claimed 21st place (18:40) as Chris Shannon claimed 25th in 19:06. Meanwhile, in the girls Central Square meet, CNS had 51 points, beating everyone in the 15-team field except West Genesee, who won with 37 points. Nicole Waterud worked her way to second place, in a time of 19:47, exactly 10 seconds behind WG’s Laura Leff, who won in 19:37. Marissa Colburn landed in fourth place in 20:44, but the Wildcats placed three more runners before Mackenzie Cummings took 14th place in 22:28. Cummings was just ahead of Dana Rinaldi (22:31), Katie Laris (22:32) and Christina Sakowski (22:45), with Mary Losito (23:28) in 30th place. All that served as a warm-up for the duel between rivals CNS and Liverpool, which will take place Wednesday at the Warriors’ home course at Longbranch Park.