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Lansing XCThe start of the varsity boys small school race at Tully Invitational

Lansing's cross-country squads headed up I-81 on Saturday Oct 14 for the Tully Invitational, a regional meet that drew almost 20 schools from Tompkins County to Syracuse and Watertown.

The Bobcats modified teams shined against some of central New York's best middle school runners as they competed on their longest course of the season (at 1.72 miles, a farther distance than their previous races from 1.25 to 1.6 miles). In the modified girls' race for small schools, Lansing's Kinsley Jacobs used a strong start to take the lead, and then battled through the second half of the race alongside Tully's Katie Edinger. With about a quarter mile to go, Jacobs made a decisive move to grab the lead and never looked back to take the first win of the day. Jacobs' time of 9:52.3 was the fastest girls modified time of the day, besting the large school times by more than 30 seconds. Loveta Geesey also ran a strong race for the modified Lady Bobcats and finished 60th out of 76 runners.

Lansing XCLansing's modified XC 1st place finishers, Sam Bell and Kinsley Jacobs

Lansing XCLansing modified boys XC team

In the boys modified small schools race, the Bobcats were fired up after a near-miss on a team win at the IAC Divisionals a week ago. Lansing's mod boys shot out at the crack of the starting gun, with Sam Bell taking the lead, holding it for the entire race, and finishing in first place. Several Bobcat mod boys followed in close pursuit, with Caden Michalec working his way into the top 10 (10th overall) and Seth Riley, Thomas Stallone, and Parker Vooris finishing 17/18/25 respectively. After all the results among the 13 competing schools were tallied, Lansing eked out a team win by 1 point over Skaneateles. Charlie Miller finished 34th, Zachary Hwang 44th, Jack Negley 49th, Arjun Kodali 58th, and Brandon Brotherton 70th out of the field of 86 runners, as eight of the 10 Lansing mod boys runners raced to their fastest times of the season despite the longer distance. 

Lansing XCLansing varsity boys XC racer Liam Hulsebosch races toward the finish line

Lansing XCLansing XC varsity boys team captain David Pollack grits out his personal best finish as the Bobcats' 5th scorer

On the varsity side, both the boys' and girls' teams were running short-handed. Lansing's girls XC team was missing its top two scorers, and the boys were without one of their top five. Nevertheless, the Bobcats teams ran strong races and earned more respect for the Bobcats' up-and-coming XC program. The varsity Lady Bobcats earned a third place finish out of 12 schools competing, with Leigh Miller (11th place finish, 23:10.0), Allison Keefe (13th, 23:11.4), Teresa Garcia (16th, 23:18.0), Eden Jackson (17th, 23:231.9), and Hana Thibault (26th, 25:05.0) scoring for their team. Haley Sullivan also finished the race at 46th out of 64 runners.

There were 122 runners in the varsity boys small schools race, and Lansing's Zoli Csaki cracked the top 10 with a 9th place finish (18:18.2) while Liam Hulsebosch made it into the top 20 at 16th (18:42.0). Jack Thomas (21st, 18:54.9), Teddy Brenner (33rd, 19:44.3), and David Pollack (52nd, 22:31.7) rounded out the scoring finishers for the Bobcats. Pollack, a senior and one of the team captains, knew he would figure into the scoring with one Bobcat runner missing, and in response he gritted out a significant personal best to boost his time. Anders Axelson and Dowain Geesey also finished the race for the Bobcats.

Lansing XCLansing XC varsity girls

Next up the Bobcat XC teams travel east to Marathon on Saturday Oct. 21 for another invitational, the teams' last tune-up before the IAC Championships in the last week of the month.

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