With the season having just kicked off, the Saranac Lake girls cross country team already took home some hardware. The Red Storm girls raced to overall team victory at the Spartan Running Festival in Cadyville on Saturday.

Saranac Lake’s girls recorded 38 team points, topping Norwood-Norfolk, which had 47 points and the host Saranac Central Spartans, which scored 50, ro place third in an event that featured more than 175 high school runners. The Lake Placid girls competed but did not score points because they only had four runners.

Meanwhile, the Saranac Lake boys finished in sixth place in their race with 141 points, while the Blue Bomber boys placed ninth with 210. Saranac Central won the event with 64 points.

The Red Storm girls were led by Nora Daley, who placed sixth overall in 21 minutes, 25.07 seconds. Teammates Pepper Laxson placed ninth in 21:33.60 and Cadence Kennedy was 10th in 21:37.54.

Saranac Lake also had strong finishes and scores from its seniors, Asa Bruno (21:48.88) and Clementine Guenette (21:53.83), who crossed in 12th and 15th place, respectively.

While the Lake Placid girls didn’t have enough runners to score points, they did post solid individual results. Leila Fey, an eighth-grader, finished in second place overall in 19:53.69, trailing only Saranac Central’s Sienna Boulds (19:25.82). Fellow Blue Bombers’ eighth-grader, Norah Francis, placed fifth in 21:19.01.

Lake Placid’s girls closed out the meet with Holly Erenstone (24:30.29) earning 36th place and Rose Wenzler (28:19.36) crossing in 63rd.

Saranac Lake also had three other runners crack the top-20 as Gwen Haney (22:25.29) finished in 17th place, Lila Zobel (22:31.14) was 18th and FinnLee Orapallo (22:34.65) earned 19th.

The Red Storm were rounded out by Eloise Zobel (24:08.70) in 33rd; Lauryn Caldwell (25:01.27) in 39th; Amelia Evans (25:13.10) in 42nd; Lizzie Harvey (25:54.09) in 43rd; Rachel Rozon (27:07.66) in 55th; Elle Russo (27:09.74) in 56th; Abilene Varner (27:15.31) in 57th; and Emily Bartiss (27:17.56) in 58th.

Emmett VanBuskirk paced the Saranac Lake boys with an 11th-place finish in 17:59.76. Teammate Keton Daley was 13th overall in 18:02.79.

The Red Storm boys also had strong finishes from their final three scorers as Colin Glascock (19:37.36) placed 31st, Rowan Popp (20:00.47) earned 41st and Jonah Seleni (20:29.10) was 52nd.

Lake Placid’s sophomore duo of Graham Scull (19:33.22) and Connor Mannion (19:35.26) finished inside the top-30. Scull placed 28th, while Mannion was 29th.

Jim Guglielmi (20:21.66) and Doug Guglielmi (20:30.79) were the next Blue Bombers runners to cross the finish line, placing 50th and 54th, respectively. Jesse Carlson (20:47.27) closed out the scoring in 61st place.

Lake Placid also had finishes from Will Preece (21:16.34) in 68th, Tyler Erenstone (21:42.46) in 70th and Asher Murray (25:16.57) in 88th.

Saranac Lake was rounded out by Gabriel Kidder (20:32.94) in 56th place; Benjamin Ziemann (20:46.85) in 60th; Gregor Weinrick (20:59.20) in 65th; Everest Wolford (22:16.13) in 75th; and Matthew Hunter (23:38.13) in 83rd.

Potsdam’s William Jones was the first boys runner to cross the finish line. He finished in 17:08.76, while Peru’s Michael Welc (17:11.42) was second and Saranac Central’s Noah Thayer (17:18.50) was third.

The Lake Placid and Saranac Lake cross country teams were slated to race against each other on Tuesday at the Dewey Mountain Recreation Center. Following that, they will once again meet, this time at Mount Van Hoevenberg at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 23.