Cazenovia runners both get top30 finishes at state cross country meet
Nov 16, 2024
QUEENSBURY – A season full of victories at the individual and team level for a pair of Cazenovia cross country runners all led to Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.
Lily Kogut and Jake Woolbert would both compete in the state Class C races at Queensbury High School, near Saratoga Springs, and both would record top-30 individual finishes.
Kogut had finished second in the Section III Class C meet Nov. 9 at Mount Markham to Skaneateles’ Lucy Fleckenstein, and now they were sectional All-Star teammate, joined by Mexico’s Aubrey Herrington and the Adirondack duo of Johannah Northrop and Cora Hinsdill.
Going 19 minutes 33.8 seconds on the 3.1-mile Queensbury course, Kogut would take 22nd place, less than 10 seconds from finishing in the top 20 as Hastings’ Caitlin Thomas won in 17:53.8.
All of this was part of a strong Section III team effort as, with 277 points, it was third just behind the 229 of Section VI and 235 from Section I.
Six different sectional runners finished in the top 25, led by South Jefferson eighth-grader Ellie Roberts getting ninth place in 19:08 flat and Fleckenstein (19:10.7) in 10th place. Hindsill was 13th (19:15.9) and Northrop 19th (19:25.4) as, in between them, Roberts’ teammate, Annabelle Renzi, was 15th in 19:16.5 helping the Spartans to a third-place team finish. Herrington posted 20:46.9.
Woolbert ran with a sectional All-Star team which included Skaneateles’ Tritan Boucher, Oneida’s Tyson Fuller, Marcellus’ Liam Eldridge and Westhill’s Edward Popp.
Finishing in 16:43.7, Woolbert made his way to 26th place. He was just behind the 16:35.5 from Fuller and 16:35.8 from Boucher as Eldridge was 32nd in 16:56.5 and Popp (17:00.2) also finished in the top 40. Schalmont’s Carter Flowers won the individual state title in 15:32.5.
Chittenango girls cross country runner Natalie DiGennaro was in a tough state Class B race where she posted a time of 21:10.2 to take 81st place overall in a field of more than 120 runners.