For the first time in many years, the High Noon men’s Open team captured the overall team title in Sunday’s fourth Pete Glavin Upstate New York Cross Country race at our home course at Taughannock Falls State Park. Not to be outdone, the High Noon Masters team also held off a strong GVH team to win its second race of the season.
Full individual and team results are available, as are the photos from the race. Be sure to check them all out—there are some great shots, including Adam Pacheck’s huge smile in first place, Columbia Warren’s mid-race impression of The Fonz, Alex Colvin demonstrating proper running form after the race, and oodles of High Nooners modeling their snazzy new jerseys in the Taughannock scenery.
The High Noon Open team fielded its strongest group of the year and tallied an impressive 19 points, handily beating the Syracuse Track Club’s 52 points. Adam Pacheck won the 6K race overall in 19:32, followed by Sam Lagasse in second in 19:42, Alex Drazic in third in 19:47, Adam Berkowitz in sixth in 20:06, and Rich Heffron in seventh in 20:11. Matt Wilber filled out the team with a thirteenth place finish in 20:17 after pushing through hamstring pain. A 45-second spread from one to six is an
impressive pack! Beyond those six runners, we had enough people to field an Open B Team, which took fifth overall.
The High Noon Masters team had a tougher race but ran strong and won with 30 points to GVH’s 36. Scott Weeks led the team with a first place Masters finish, followed by Eric Sambolec in fifth, Brian Lazzaro in seventh, Ian Golden in eighth, and Earl Steinbrecher in ninth. Alex Colvin (11th) and Joey Randall (15th) filled out the team.
The High Noon Vets team took fourth but the race was closer than it sounds. GVH took the win with 41 points, Syracuse Track Club was second with 51, Checkers placed third with 57, and High Noon finished fourth with 69. A coaching error on my part resulted in the High Noon Super Vets team taking seventh, since we went into the day with nine runners across two teams but lost four before the race and I only heard from three, so I didn’t adjust the team composition properly. Even still, the best we would have placed would have been third.
Individually, High Noon brought home a good amount of age-group chocolate. In 20-39, after Adam Pacheck’s win (for wine), Sam Lagasse took chocolate for first in the age group. In 40-49, Scott Weeks won, as did Casey Carlstrom in 60-69.
The FLRC women’s Open team—with strong finishes by Jenny Berkowitz, Amelia Kaufman, Amanda King, Julie Barclay, and Liz Hartman—took second, edging out GVH 67 points to 73. The FLRC ladies finished well behind the dominant Checkers team that notched up only 20 points. In a heartbreaker, Checkers also snuck by FLRC’s Vets team, 12 points to 14. Caitlin Loehr led our Vets, followed by Brenda Osovski, Gill Haines-Sharp, Sandy Gregorich, and Lorrie Tily. FLRC’s Masters team took fourth and the Super Vets team took third.
Individually for the FLRC women, Julie Barclay took third in the 40-49 age group, and Caitlin Loehr was third in the 50-59 age group.
Once again, FLRC’s 19-and-under team won its division, with Tito Maresca taking first (and 17th overall in the race), followed by Nick Marnell, Aidan Lazzaro, Oliver Lambert, Kieran Stewart, and Ben Lambert.
In the U19 age group, Alex Drazic took home chocolate for the win, with Tito Maresca in second.
Our final race is a hilly 8K next Sunday, November 3, at the Finger Lakes Community College in Canandaigua. We’ll see how how the High Noon and FLRC teams can finish out the season and compete for the PGXC cup.
