Racing at the Section VII Cross Country Championships at the Cobble Hill Golf Course, the Red Storm girls placed second overall in the Class C race with 41 team points, trailing only the perennial powerhouse Saranac Central Spartans, which won the Class C race with 30 points. The Peru Nighthawks finished in third with 85 points.

Saranac Lake’s boys placed third in their Class C race with 55 points, while the Spartan boys won the Class C title with 39 points. The AuSable Valley Patriots were second with 50.

Nora Daley, a freshman, was the top first Red Storm girls runner, placing third in Class C racing at 18 minutes, 19.32 seconds. Senior Asa Bruno finished right behind in fourth in 18:30.96, followed by sophomore Cadence Kennedy (19:16.66) in 10th. The trio will all represent Saranac Lake at the NYSPHSAA Cross Country Championships at Queensbury High School on Saturday.

Saranac Lake’s FinnLee Orapallo (19:17.53) narrowly missed a state spot as she finished in 11th, while Meadow Nashett (19:29.92) was 13th. The Spartans had five runners place inside the top 10 in the Class C race to essentially seal the sectional crown.

Saranac Lake’s Keaton Daley, left, competes alongside a Peru runner Friday’s Section VII Championships at the Cobble Hill Golf Course in Elizabethtown. (Enterprise photo — Parker O’Brien)

Saranac Central’s Sienna Boulds, a senior, claimed the overall and Class C title for the second year in a row, finishing at 17:44.95. Peru’s Maddy Welc placed second in Class C at 18:10.80. Despite falling short, Bruno said this whole season has been an experience for the Red Storm.

“We’ve been undefeated throughout the (regular) season,” Bruno said. “Maybe it doesn’t feel as good to get second place, but it’s still worth it.”

Three other Saranac Lake runners finished in the top 20 on Friday, with Gwen Haney (19:55.27) placing 14th, Clementine Guenette (20:25.48) in 17th and Lila Zobel (20:27.20) in 18th.

The team was closed out by Amelia Evans (21:14.65) in 24th; Ally Bourgeois (21:40.89) in 28th; Lizzie Harvey (22:09.38) in 31st; Lauryn Caldwell (22:51.47) in 37th; Eloise Zobel (22:59.93) in 39th; Rachel Rozon (23:03.37) in 40th; and Emily Bartiss (23:08.27) in 41st.

Despite falling short in their ultimate goal of winning the sectional crown, the Red Storm was still happy with their results as Harvey, one of five seniors on the girls team, said she could not be prouder of how the whole team battled.

“No matter if it’s someone that scores or someone that doesn’t, everyone put everything out there today, we’re all happy,” she said. “I don’t see anyone crying out there, even though we didn’t win, which is like exactly what we wanted going into today.”

The girls’ season has still been pretty remarkable. Along with claiming the CVAC title, this season the squad won the South Glens Falls K-Dawg Invitational and the Division II Burnt Hills Invitational against some of the top teams in the state.

“This is the best team we’ve had in a while,” Bruno said. “Both time-wise and character-wise. We’ve had a great interaction as a group.”

On the boys side, Emmett VanBuskirk led the way for Saranac Lake, placing seventh in the Class C race in 16:20.51. Teammate Keaton Daley (16:31.62), who finished in ninth, said they were impressed by their team’s performance.

“I think we went a lot faster than a lot of people expected today,” he said. “I feel like a lot of our team got some really big (personal records) that they were definitely not expecting. I feel like I personally had a pretty good race. I got both my goals for the season, so I’m happy with that.”

Daley finished one second faster than his time at last year’s Section VII championship, and narrowly missed out on the final state championship slot, which VanBuskirk grabbed as he’ll be the lone Red Storm boys representative at the race. But VanBuskirk had to work for the last spot, finishing 30 seconds faster than at this race than his result last season.

“That’s kind of all you ask for,” he said.

AuSable Valley’s Reece Long won the Class C title — and placed second overall in the section — in a time of 15:31.45. Saranac Central’s Sean Dormann (15:45.49) was second in Class C, while Peru’s Michael Welc (15:53.89) finished in third. The Spartans’ depth proved to be the difference-maker as they had five of the top 13 Class C runners.

Apart from VanBurkirk and Daley, Saranac Lake’s other three scorers were Ebin Meissner (16:47.73) in 12th, Rowan Popp (17:06.18) in 17th and Gregor Weinrick (17:48.54) in 23rd. The Red Storm made up most of its ground on the hilly parts of the Cobble Hill Golf Course, while its opponents made up time on the flatter parts.

“We always seem to do better on the hill with our home course being at Dewey and everything,” VanBuskirk said. “We’re a lot better on the hills and some other teams.”

Saranac Lake was rounded out by Benjamin Ziemann (17:50.74) in 25th; Colin Glascock (17:51.94) in 26th; Jonah Seleni (18:09.51) in 31st; Gabriel Kidder (18:19.79) in 32nd; Matthew Hunter (18:59.86) in 37th; Everest Wolford (19:00.25) in 38th; Mason Estling (22:04.93) in 51st.

The NYSPHSAA Cross Country Championships Class C girls race will kick off at 9:30 a.m., while the boys race is set for a noon start.