Cross Country
Town of Amherst runners qualify for states

Four Town of Amherst cross country runners qualified for this Saturday's New York State Championships at Warwick Valley High School (Section IX) outside of Middletown, N.Y. after placing in the top five at last Friday's Section VI Championships at Long Point State Park in Bemus Point, N.Y. The sectional race was under snowy, icy and muddy conditions.

Amherst Central's Brenna Symoniak and Sweet Home's Megan Niblock advanced for the girls while Sweet Home's Jacob Hagen and Williamsville North's Chris Deptula qualified for the boys.

Amherst Central

The Lady Tigers did not meet its preseason goal of repeating as section champs, placing third in Class A with 75 points. Starpoint won the race (59) followed by Lake Shore (61).

"We're disappointed that we didn't finish first," said Amherst coach Bob O'Donnell. "That had been our goal but Starpoint and Lake Shore were just a little bit better that day. The girls tried their best, it just didn't happen."

Brenna Symoniak finished second with a time of 20:42.

"The conditions favored her," said O'Donnell. "They had six inches of snow on the ground. It was 35 degrees. She's light so it helped her out."

Senior Arielle Januszkiewicz missed out on the state meet for the first time, placing seventh in 21:14. The top team plus the top five individuals in each class qualify for states.

Erin Cotter (22:56), Sarah Lister (22:56), Tori Sosnowski (23:29), Claire Wietig (23:42) and Diane Herzog (25:14) also ran for Amherst.

"Some of the kids were hurt at the beginning of the season and the layoff (from the snowstorm) didn't help, even though they trained by themselves," said O'Donnell. "I think Lake Shore didn't miss any school. Starpoint was off for two days. We were off for 10 days."

"They worked real hard," he added. "They kept together even during the adversity. They did their best for the conditions and what we were up against. I'm pretty proud of them."

The Amherst boys finished 11th on Class A with 261 points.Freshman Steve Dalton led Amherst in 19:55. Andy Wong (20:10), Jeremy Jones (20:39), Nick Reynolds (20:50), Andy Taube (21:32), Elliot Bible (21:37) and Billy Wieczorek (22:39) also ran.

Williamsville North

The North boys team finished its ECIC record at 7-5 and took fourth at sectionals with 106 points behind strong performances from senior tri-captains Chris Deptula (seventh, 18:08), Jon Adler (15th, 18:37), David Johnson (18th, 18:47), and junior Geoff Hurley (21st, 18:52), senior Miah Hildreth (46th, 20:08) and freshman Ryan Perry in 21:04.

Senior Chris Deptula finished fifth in 18:08 to qualify for states, marking the fifth straight year North has sent either an individual or a team to the state meet.

The Spartan girls team totaled 338 points at sectionals. They were led by co-captains sophomore Kim Berus (24:23), junior Kaila Raybuck (24:41), freshman Natalie Worley (28:09), Stephanie Kranz (29:30), Jessica Leising (29:49) and Bailey Lamson (31:29).

"Coach Hopkins and I have enjoyed coaching these fine student-athletes and we wish our seniors all the best in their future endeavors," said North coach Greg Stang.

Williamsville East

The East boys finished eighth in Class A with 216 points. Senior Dan White was the team's top finisher in 19:08 and 19th overall, closely followed by junior Andy McDonald, who finished in 19:17 for 23rd overall in Class A.

Sophomores Scott Ryan and Max Fogel ran very strong races, along with season best times by juniors Zinan Cheng and Matt Pawlicki.

The East girls finished ninth in Class A with 248 points. Junior Anna Stolzenburg was East's top finisher coming in 26th overall in Class A in 23:16.

Also running well for the Lady Flames were juniors Kristen Saviola, Hillary Scrivani, Kristen Leonard and Colleen Lauer, and seniors Jessica Conti and Nicole Marple.

Sweet Home Sweet Home finished fourth in Class A with 100 points. Senior Jacob Hagen qualified for the state meet with a second place finish in 17:39. Senior Ryan Poley was sixth in 18:08. Other great performances were turned in by Mike Bakowski (25th), Isaac Hagen (28th), Tim Heavern (39th) and Rob Kurzdorfer (40th).

The Sweet Home girls were seventh in Class A with 143 points. Senior Megan Niblock finished fourth in 20:55.6 to qualify for states. Freshman Katie Niblock also had a strong performance, finishing 14th.

Williamsville South

The boys finished 12th out of 14 teams with 292 points, led by Dave Quinlan's 34th place finish in 19:43 and Paul Mangold's 42nd place finish in 19:58.

Alex Podvezko (57th, 20:58), John Stark, (76th, 21:59), Steve Belle (85th, 23:46), and William Freeman (86th, 24:24) also ran.

The girls' team finished 13th out of 14 teams with 343 points, led by the outstanding performance of Maxine Meyerhofer, who finished 39th in 24:34. Colleen Hurtubise (66th, 27:59), Gretchen Szal (71st, 28:44), Laura Johnston (83rd, 32:42), Jenny Mooney (84th, 32:48), and Allison Shubert (86th, 35:08) also ran.

Last week the teams competed in the ECIC Chanmpionship Meet at East Aurora. Both teams had dual meet scores against Hamburg, Pioneer and West Seneca East to make up for meets cancelled due to the October snowstorm. The boys lost to Hamburg 18-43 and beat Pioneer, 15-50 and West Seneca East, 21:35.

The boys also beat those three teams in invitational scoring to finish the season in sixth place in Division II with a 6-10 record.

The girls were able to finish only four runners due to injuries, and lost the three meets in dual meet scoring and overall scoring to finish last at 1-15.

The boys were led by Quinlan, who finished 10th to earn second team all-star status for the second year in a row. Mangold (27th), Podvezko (29th), Stark (42nd), Belle (50th), and Freeman (51st) also ran.

Meyerhofer led the girls, as she has all year, finishing 33rd. Szal was 49th, Johnston came in 51st, and Shubert was 54th.