The Lake Placid and Saranac Lake girls teams each placed second, but will send individual runners to the state meet outside of Binghamton.

Saranac Lake senior Brittany Shumway ran away with the overall individual title Friday after finishing the 5-kilometer course in 18 minutes, 15 seconds to best the large field. She will be joined by teammate Madison Grimone and Lake Placid runners Gabby Armstrong, Marli Damp and Sarah Rose-McCandlish at the state meet.

“It was good,” Shumway said. “It felt really good. The hill was pretty hard after coming over it, and then running that straightaway, that was pretty rough. I had to recover as fast as I could. (But) it was a great day for racing.”

Armstrong was the first Lake Placid runner to cross the line in the girls race with her sixth-place overall finish in 19:14. Damp finished in 19:28 and Rose-McCandlish was just eight seconds behind her. Grimone had a time of 19:45, while Lake Placid’s Anya Morgan just missed the cut for the state meet with a time of 20:45.

From left, Lake Placid's Gabby Armstrong, Sarah Rose-McCandlish and Marli Damp celebrate Friday after qualifying for the state cross country championships next week at Chenango Valley State Park. (Enterprise photo — Justin A. Levine)

“Brittany had a great race,” Saranac Lake coach Joe Merrihew said. “This is the type of day and course that I think favors her. It didn’t wear on her going up those hills. She had an extra gear at the end and used it and kind of ratcheted it up.”

Henry McGrew was the first Lake Placid boy across the line with his time of 17:47, while Saranac Lake’s Anderson Gray was less than 10 seconds behind at 17:54. Lake Placid runners Scott Schulz and Trent White tied at 18:13, while James Flanigan crossed the line in 18:24 and Kai Frantz was 12th overall in 18:37.

“They’re competitors. Even though they know that they’re going in the top, they know it’s never a given,” Lake Placid coach Mel Frazer said. “(I have) no complaints.”

The Lake Placid boys team won the school’s first team state championship last year and goes into this year’s meet as the sixth-ranked team in the latest New York State Sports Writers poll. Elmira Notre Dame, of Section IV, is the top-ranked team.

Saranac Lake will send the team of Anderson Gray, Lauchlan Cheney-Seymour, Jacob Alberga, Tyler Martin, Adam Branch, PJ Buck and Adam Hesseltine to next week’s state meet.

Lake Placid’s Lauchlan Cheney-Seymour, left, and Trent White, of Lake Placid, reach the finish line in Friday's Section VII cross country championship at Cobble Hill Golf Course in Elizabethtown. Both teams claimed sectional titles at the meet. (Enterprise photo - Justin A. Levine)

“The guys won Class C today, so they’ll get that recognition,” Merrihew said. “That was kind of to be expected, but now they’ve solidified it so that was good to see.”

Armstrong, a senior who has made multiple appearances in the state meet during her high school career, had a good day on the course and is looking forward to next week’s state meet.

“It was great for me. I just wanted to have a good race. (It) was my last sectional race ever,” Armstrong said. “Everyone on our team did great for all the girls, so everyone was really excited and it was awesome.”

Armstrong said the Lake Placid team has been practicing on golf courses, which prepared the team for Friday’s race and should serve them well at the championship next week.

“We’ve been training on a lot of flatter golf courses this year since states is at a golf course,” she said. “Usually Lake Placid runs well on more of the hillier courses since we have Van Ho to train at and it’s all hills. But we’ve been training on flatter courses, so it really played to our strengths today.

“It’s hard to tell with states. I’m just hoping I have a race comparable to today.”

Frazer said she was thrilled with the way her team ran Friday.

“Gabby has been closing in on her (Damp) for sure,” Frazer said. “We’ve had some sicknesses going around the team too. Marli said she wasn’t feeling her best, (but) she still had a heck of a race.

“We went and did the pre-state course, and that’s on a golf course so not really for today, but for the pre-state meet. We have definitely been practicing the rolling hills, keeping the speed up going over the top and going fast on the downhills,” Frazer said. “A lot of times we see them kind of slow down on the downhills so we’ve been practicing going fast on the down. We’ve definitely put in our practice there.”

Merrihew was also quite pleased with the results of the race for both the boys and girls.

Saranac Lake runners, from left, PJ Buck, Lauchlan Cheney-Seymour, Adam Hesseltine, Jacob Alberga, Tyler Martin, Adam Branch and Anderson Gray display their Section VII championip banner Friday at Cobble Hill Golf Course in Elizabethtown. (Enterprise photo — Justin A. Levine)

“I had a pack of three guys that normally aren’t together because Anderson (Gray) is up front. But he was a little under the weather today, so that helped push my three and four guys and it really helped them make a strong finish today,” Merrihew said. “As far as times go, today was just crazy fast. It was like ‘whoa’ that’s pretty good to have all your guys in that fast. That was a big deal.

“I just think a lot of the training comes down to today. Not to base it all on one day, but you kind of base all of your work on the season down to the final two or three weeks. You can only peak for so long, so this is the chance for our kids to showcase what they’ve got. I think our kids responded to that in a positive way, so that was good.”

Lake Placid senior Gabby Armstrong closes in on the finish line of Friday’s Section VII championship race in Elizabethtown (Enterprise photo — Justin A. Levine)

Lake Placid's Scott Schulz, right, gives it his all as he nears the finish line of Friday’s sectional championship race in Elizabethtown. (Enterprise photo — Justin A. Levine)