By Jason Hyatt
boys cross country coach
On Nov. 5 the Cazenovia boys cross country team, ranked 15th in the state in Class C, traveled down the road to Chittenango High School to compete in the Section III Class C championships, and made some history on both an individual and team level.
The Lakers ran its best race of the season finishing in third place with 138 points. That finish matched the team’s best-ever effort in a sectional meet, trailing only Marcellus (57 points) and Clinton (97 points) by the time the scores were added up. In all, 14 teams competed in Class C and Cazenovia beat most of them.
Junior James McPherson led the team and earned his first trip to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships by finishing third overall. In a time of 17 minutes, 6.2 seconds, McPherson only trailed Christian Brothers Academy’s Dominic Morganti, who won in 16:42 flat, and Canastota’s Adam VanValkenburgh, who was second in 17:00.6.
McPherson, Morganti and VanValkenburgh would join Clinton’s C.J. Militello and Holland Patent’s Chris Celecki on the Section III All-Star team at the state meet, held Saturday at Chenango Valley State Park.
Another Cazenovia junior Jon Marecek, finished second for the Lakers and sixth overall but just missed out on qualifying for the state meet. Marecek finished in 17:22.2, exactly one second behind Celecki’s 17:21.2.
Ensuring the third-place team finish for the Lakers was junior, Nick Barna, who was 40th in 19:04.2, just ahead of junior Jacob Wells (44 th, 19:11.0), senior Brendan Coffey, (45th, 19:11.3), junior Ian Marshall, (50th, 19:18.3) and junior Jack Gabor, who was 56th in19:26.5,
Rounding out the Lakers sectional team effort, sophomore Zach Wendel was 80th in 20:20.7, ahead of junior Tony Koppers (90th, 20:40.7) and junior Carson Clonan, who finished 105th in 21:17.1.
The Lakers’ 138 points were tied with Hannibal but the Lakers won the third-place tie-breaker by having the better sixth runner, junior Ian Marshall. Marshall finished well ahead of Hannibal’s sixth runner, James Somers, who was 69th in 20:13.6.