Here was one of the first chances this fall for the Fayetteville-Manlius cross country team to showcase itself on a large stage — namely, the Manhattan Invitational. And when the Hornets went to the Bronx, it proved to be special, especially on the girls side, where it won the main event, the Eastern States, with 22 points to beat runner-up Saratoga Springs. Hannah Luber tore through the 4,000-meter course in 14 minutes, 26.16 seconds and edged out Courtney Chapman (14:26.73) for second place behind Cornwall’s Aisling Cuffe, who won in 14:03.28. Molly Malone led the next wave, in fourth place (14:37.70), while Jillian Fanning claimed fifth place in 14:39.79 and Mackenzie Carter (14:46.80) rounded out the scoring in eighth place. Heather Martin was 15th (14:59.71) and Kathryn Fanning slipped into 28th place in 15:32.31. Meanwhile, the F-M boys team won its first head-to-head battle with main Section III Class AA rival Liverpool, with the Hornets second (125 points) to Christian Brothers, from New Jersey (116 points) and the Warriors back in fifth place. And this came without a full-strength Alex Hatz, who still took it easy in the aftermath of his kidney surgery and finished in 13:28.77 and 54th place. Ahead of Hatz, Brendan Farrell finished 14th, in 12:51.51, while Mark McGurrin claimed 17th (12:54.79) and Paul Merriman was 21st in 12:58.89. Andrew Roache worked his way to 24th place in 13:02.14, with Joe Hartnett (13:50.39) and Ben Thomas (14:03.94) slotting in behind Hatz. Also in Manhattan, CBA’s girls team finished ninth in the Varsity C division, where Katie Brislin ran to eighth place in a time of 15:29.64. On the boys side, Tom Voorheis was 13th in the Varstiy E race in 13:34.64. Jamesville-DeWitt finished ninth in the boys Varsity E race (Baldwinsville finished on top) while going to 15th place in the girls Varsity F division. For the boys Rams, who didn’t have Bumkuth Jiak in the lineup, Dan Driscoll took 22nd place in 13:48.65. Eileen Cody worked her way to 14th place in the girls Varsity F race in 15:48.85. East Syracuse-Minoa didn’t go to New York City, because it was busy hosting its own invitational meet, winning it on the boys side with 54 points, well clear of runner-up Mexico (95 points) in a field of 13. Craig Andrianos took fifth place, in 17:14.7, as the Tigers’ Ryan Demers (16:41.6) claimed individual honors. Matt Lyons was ninth (17:42.6), while Andrew Troast ran to 10th place (17:49.2) and Pete Ferstler earned 13th place in 18:10.5. Dylan Courbat clinched the title with his 17th-place clocking of 18:18.9 as Paul Schneible finished 23rd (18:44.6) and Lou Ferrone (18:51.2) took 29th. In the girls ESM Invitational, the Spartans got fourth place with 90 points as Fabius-Pompey (41 points) claimed the top spot over Skaneateles. Meghan Visser had a strong run, her time of 20:32.6 bettered only by Mexico’s Tia Bullard, who won in 19:24.8. Alyssa Bassett was 11th, in 22:19.4, with Meg Crandall 27th and Elizabeth VanDeusen in 28th place.