For the first time this autumn, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls cross country team ventured out of Central New York to face elite competition, and the results were quite familiar. The Hornets won the Eastern States portion of Saturday’s Manhattan Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, finishing with 32 points. Tatnall, from Delaware, was far back in second place with 80 points as Great Oak (Calif.) took third with 90 points. Jillian Fanning finished in 14 minutes, 16.08 seconds, putting her in second place in the individual standings behind only Cornwall’s Aisling Cuffe (13:58.14). In all, F-M occupied five of the top 11 spots. Katie Sischo finished fourth in 14:26.38, while Christie Rutledge got seventh place (14:52.14) and Katie Brislin finished eighth in 14:56.51. Heather Martin was 11th in 15:08.43 as Courtney Chapman, still recuperating from a September flu bug, finished 16th. Emily McGurrin took 39th place. On the boys side at the Eastern States, F-M did quite well, taking third place with 168 points as Shaker took the top spot with 102 points and Lyncourt, N.J. CBA finished second with 144 points. Both Mark McGurrin and Andrew Roache reached the top 10, as McGurrin finished seventh in a clocking of 12:57.13 and Roache got ninth place in 12:58.08. Nick Ryan was 34th in 13:24.79 as Ben Thomas finished 55th (13:41.29), just ahead of Andrew Veilleux (13:47.28), Owen Strong (13:49.26) and Jules Wellner (13:58.50). Three days earlier, the Hornets went head-to-head against Baldwinsville and had yet another 15-50 sweep on the girls side, but struggled a bit in the boys end before beating the Bees 23-38. The only suspense came when B’ville runner Shaun Thompson beat the F-M pack to win the boys race in a time of 15:53, leaving Andrew Roache second in 16:02. Of course, Roache had McGurrin (16:03) right behind him, even though the Bees’ Alec Peinkofer landed in fourth place in 16:04. It took Veilleux, in fifth place (16:19), to start the getaway as Conner Farrell, Strong (both in 16:31), Thomas (16:32) and Wellner (16:33) hit the line together. F-M’s girls ran, again, as a pack. Sischo won in 18:58, a second ahead of Fanning, Martin and Rutledge, while Brislin, Chapman and Emily McGurrin finished in 19 minutes flat. Maggie Malone was eighth in 19:02, with Leah Monsour and Alana Pearl each posting 19:09.