Photos by Lisa McArthur, Gary Paulson, & Phil Johnson
In the history of the Nike Cross Nationals, Fayetteville Manlius head coach Bill Aris has won nearly every girls’ title.
But even though he’s had his share of contenders prior to Saturday’s meet, never had his boys come home with the coveted hardware.
That no longer is the case.
In what Aris classified as “a total team race,” Fayetteville Manlius claimed the team title at the Glendoveer Golf Course in Portland, Oregon. Led by a step-up performance from junior Pete Ryan, the Hornets defeated second-place Wayzata, Minn., 111-159. Behind an individual triumph from Tanner Anderson, North Central, Wash., was third with 178 points.
The victory by F-M completed a sweep by the New York school as the girls won their eighth crown in the last nine years.
“I have been here for every NXN, and I have taken some good teams here with the boys and we have always come out short,” said Aris, whose squad placed fourth last year. “But this one, to win today, on a brand new course, and for the girls to win simultaneously, it can’t get any better than that.”
The Hornets had a compression of just 49 seconds between their first and fifth runners. Ryan was the top finisher for F-M, placing 15th overall in a time of 15 minutes, 40 seconds. Senior Bryce Millar, who was one of the leading contenders for an individual title, was next across the line, taking 38th overall in 16-minutes flat. Comprising the remainder of the scoring was the senior trio of Kyle Barber (39th, 16:00), Adam Hunt (44th, 16:03) and Riley Hughes (96th, 16:29).
“It was solid team running and interchangeability,” Aris said. “We had one guy that fell off a little bit, our top guy Bryce Millar. He still had a helluva day, but not his best. But we had two guys that came right up. Pete Ryan, who was his sidekick all season, had a terrific race as our lead guy. It was a team day. We had six solid guys today. Our seventh runner was a little bit off but he was part of it, too.”
Wayzata was fueled by the tandem effort of senior Connor Olson and Jaret Carpenter, who were 12th and 14th, respectively, with identical times of 15:39. The remaining scoring runners for the Trojans, who were 15th at last year’s NXN, were Ian Eklin (41st, 16:01), Nicholas Shaleen (104th, 16:32) and Andrew Quirk (109th, 16:35).
One of the surprises of the meet came from North Central, a team that most did not predict would make it to the podium. In addition to Anderson, Justin Janke (50th, 16:07), Andrew Vandine (57th, 16:13), Jacob Christner (91st, 16:26) and Sam Sjoberg (121st, 16:42) scored for the Spokane squad.
“Last year we were within five points of fourth,” said head coach Jon Knight. “It’s just sort of a dogfight out there…If you look back at the results, it seems like there is always one team that pulls it off that nobody predicts would pull it off. I would say we were that team today. I think every year a team does that.”
