Titles Coming Cross Country

It's getting hard to draw comparisons as the girls from Fayetteville-Manlius won their sixth consecutive title at the Nike Cross Nationals today at Portland Meadows in Oregon. John Wooden's UCLA basketball dynasty, perhaps?

But that wasn't all as the squad from Christian Brothers Academy claimed a narrow win on the boys' side, making sure both national crowns come back to the East coast.

For the FM girls, the biggest challenge on the national stage was the same as it always is in their own backyard as they outpointed Saratoga Springs, 60-84. Tatnall of Delaware was a distant third with 182.

It was an emotional win for FM Coach Bill Aris, who lost his father this year. "It was a challenging year – my most challenging ever," he told Doug Binder of ESPN Rise. "I dedicated all of my coaching efforts to my dad today. He's the truest Stotan I've ever known and God bless him. He's looking down right now from heaven with pride."

First across the line individually was Simi Valley's Sarah Baxter in 17:38 followed by Tatnall's Haley Pierce four seconds later. Not far behind, in fourth at 17:50, was FM's Jillian Fanning, who again led an impressive parade of teammates. Katie Sischo was 21st overall in 18:26, Katie Brislin 25th, Alana Pearl 34th and Hanna Smith 44th.

For 'Toga, it was Estela Smith first (19th overall in 18:23), backed up by Taylor Driscoll (22nd), Keelin Hollowood (28th), Olivia Morrow (52nd) and Maggi Szpak (62nd).

North Shore's 1-2 punch of Samantha Nadel (10th) and Brianna Nerud (17th) were not enough to threaten the leaders, as the Vikings were ninth overall.

Local individuals were also impressive as Bronxville's Mary Cain was sixth (17:56) and Sachem East's Rachel Paul was 26th (18:31).

On the boys' side, there was suspense. A lot of it. It simply came down to a team battle between CBA and Southlake Carroll of Texas and the final margin was just four positions, 91-95. The two teams had an identical 16:00 average and were separated by a total of a single second.

"This is the biggest moment in CBA cross," said Coach Tom Heath, whose program is filled with big moments. "It's an incredible achievement. We told them in the first K to get out, and they did pretty well, but not as well as Carroll did. After the moguls there's a good patch where they can really move. And from there it was a battle."

For CBA it was George Kelly leading the way, taking 23rd overall in 15:50, followed closely by Jack Boyle (29th in 15:53) and Tim Gorman (36th in 15:55). The remaining two scorers were Mike McClemens (61st) and Will Bragg (72nd).

As a team, the boys from FM were 12th while star Nick Ryan went out strong and finished fifth overall in 15:31, 28 seconds behind champion Futsum Zeinasellaissie of North Central High in Indianapolis. Zeinasellaissie will square off with St. Benedict's Edward Cheserek next weekend at the Footlocker Nationals in San Diego, Calif., in a battle for the ages.

Shaker was 16th overall, paced by Christian Delago's 16:06, good for 60th place.