Storm runners sweep through meet
SARANAC LAKE — The Saranac Lake cross country teams just keep on rolling. Both the boys and girls Red Storm teams swept Tuesday’s meet at Fort Ticonderoga.
Despite competing without one of its top runners, the Saranac Lake’s girls team edged out the Ticonderoga Sentinels 26-29, while also picking up a 16-48 victory over the AuSable Valley Patriots and a 17-45 win over the Beekmantown Eagles. The sweep improved the Red Storm girls’ record to 10-1 on the season.
Meanwhile, the boys kept their undefeated season intact with identical scores of 18-40 over the Sentinels and Eagles and a 15-50 victory over the Patriots.
In a competitive girls’ race, Ticonderoga’s Avery Blanchard was the overall winner in a time of 20 minutes, 50 seconds. Shortly after Blanchard’s finish, the Red Storm’s Phoebe Peer came through to claim second place in 21:54, followed by her teammate Astacia Bruno (23:10) in third. Saranac Lake’ Nelle Aaron took fifth place in 23:23.9 and Brooklyn Shumway was seventh in 23:40.
The Red Storm also had three runners finish inside the top 20, with Zoe Carpenter (24:29.5) in 11th place, Sabine Deckenberger (24:29.8) in 12th and Elle Dawson (27:56) in 15th place.
On the boys side, Saranac Lake’s usual top two boys were at it again, finishing with Jake Kollmer narrowly edging out his teammate Sam Ash. Kollmer won the race in 16:49, while Ash was second in 16:55.
The Red Storm boys then occupied the fifth through seventh place spots, with Aiden Hesseltine (18:42.5) in fifth, Morgan Martin (18:42.9) in sixth and Sam Madden (18:51) in seventh. Saranac Lake’s Sam Bickford took ninth place in 19:04 to round out the top 10.
The Red Storm boys also had strong finishes from Paul Fogarty (19:33) in 13th place, Keaton Daley (19:33.7) in 14th, Alex Evans (19:34) in 15th place and Max Hall (20:27) in 18th.
The two teams will run again on Tuesday at home against Plattsburgh and Seton Catholic at Dewey Mountain starting at 4:30 p.m.