2016 NY Boys XC Preview: 16 Questions For The Upcoming Season

2016 Saucony Flo50 XC Team Rankings Countdown
Perry King

16 Questions for 2016

New York State XC Season Guide - Boys 2016




The Nike Cross National - NY guys get prepped for the hill as Liverpool's Ben Petrella swings out to the right to stay out of trouble before heading on to the victory.


  • 16 -- Is everything coming around again at Chenango Valley? Back in 2004 when the States meet was last held at Chanango Valley, a new XC classification expanded the NY system to AA-A-B-C-D, which disrupted the old order and led to a clean sweep of new team champions at States.The  the winners of the top four classes were Fayetteville-Manlius (AA), Burnt Hills (A), Somers (B), and Sauquoit Valley (C). Twelve years later NY XC is entering the sixth year of its return to four classes, and  for the first time in the spanning years, all four teams are among the top 3 favorites to win a title in their class, though only Somers is still  in the same class. They can't all win again however, since Somers and Burnt Hill now both compete in B. Over the last 12 years, FM and Burnt Hills have been perennial powers, but Somers and Sauquoit Valley have returned to States only once, 2009 in Class A for the Tuskers and last year in Class D for the Indians.
  • 15 -- Was too much taken off the top for the NY guys' new look? The top five runners from last year in NY are gone, as Ben Petrella, Aidan Tooker, Kenny Vasbinder, and Conor Lundy graduated and Noah Affolder has moved to Pennsylvania. So how much is left in the tank for the elite guys? Actually, quite a bit. There were only 14 seniors among last year's top 25 runners in NY, which is a bit lower than the usual rate. Even with departure of both Noah and Sam Affolder, there are a healthy (hopefully) bunch of guys back to lead this year's drive at the top with a quintet of Noah Carey, Nathan Lawler, Jonathan Lauer, Christopher Tibbetts, and Paul Dellinger all sporting TRs at the 183+ plus level.
  • 14 -- Do the Crusaders or Red Red Raiders rule in the west? For at least the last three years, the Marauders of St. Joseph Collegiate have dominated the Buffalo area CHSAA schools, but the Mauraders got hit hard when their top 4 at the Federation meet graduated, so now it may well be the time for Canisius or St. Francis to have their day in the sun at the Monsignor Martin All-Catholic meet. On the other hand, St. Joe's may only need one new top runner to emerge for another run at the title, so the Crusaders and Red Raiders will probably still be watching behind them this year.
  • 13 -- Can Trinity have its Independence Day and finally end Collegiate's 19-year streaking run? Collegiate has won every AIS championship since before the members of this year's team were born, but after losing four of the top 5 from last year's varsity, Collegiate will need a big rebuilding project to keep the streak going because Trinity is pulling a reversal and bringing four of it's top 5 back from a squad that was only 7 points back last year.
  • 12 -- Is Stuyvesant pegged for another year at the top of the PSAL? Stuyvesant won its first PSAL championship since 2010 last year and is favored this year by more than any team in a major NY conference. But no team has repeated in the PSAL since Stuyvesant pulled the trick back in 2007, and a different team has won each of the last five championships, so can the Peglegs break the mold and hold off Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, McKee Tech and the other contenders in the public arena?
  • 11 -- Who will be the frosh faces of 2016? A precocious group of freshman hit the trails each year intent on becoming the new enfants terrible of NY boys XC. Last year's young standouts even included two 8th graders among the half dozen single-digit guys, and both Behailu Bekele-Acuri and Gabe Planty are now back as freshman to look big for a title run, though Bekele-Acuri has moved on to Warwick Valley while Planty remains with Watkins Glen. Among the other freshman XC returners who look ready to make big strides are Salmon River's Tyler Shorrette, Grand Island's Sebastian Melendez, and Pawling's Alex Petrusso. New guys who could certainly help their teams if they're running this fall include Eddie Scroxton of Southwestern, Cobleskill's Adrian Kowal, Saratoga's Geoff Howles, and a Pittsford Mendon guy whose last name might sound familiar, Sam Lawler.
  • 10-- Which top teams are getting a boost from performance-lifting plain dumb luck? The top rated team in the preseason in Classes A, B and C are all sitting in that top position because of just silly good fortune for the returning group. Ithaca is bringing back its top five runners from last year, four seniors and a junior. How often does a top Class A team return all of its top 5? Like never! Burnt Hills graduated its top runner, but the next six are back, and four of them will be only sophomores. That happens once every thousand years of so. Watkins Glen returns its top 7, and the #3 runner is only a freshman. That hasn't happened since amoebas were the world's highest form of life. So to be top dog, all you need is a lot of luck, and to be really good.
  • 9 --Is any individual champion from last year pulling a repeat? It's got to be a little bit of a lonely feeling for for Trinity's Aidan Ryan on the trails this year. Of the guys who won any of the ten big postseason races that include the States class contests, the NYC and Buffalo area CHSAA championships, PSAL and AIS meets, and the Federation and NXN-NY, the only runner who has a chance to repeat his 2015 win is Mr. Ryan of the Tigers. From way way way back, there's always been at least one repeat winner in the postseason, and usually a couple. So the fate of this streak lies solely in the feet of one guy. No pressure there, Aidan. You got it.
  • 8 -- Which Sectional contests will cause the greatest loss of hair among coaches ? There is a decent number of smooth-domed guys in NY XC's coaching ranks, because it's the stuff on top that is the first thing that gets lost when a team loses a nailbiter, and sometimes even when they win it. Class A could see the park staff sweeping up cartloads of hair in the S3-A again with #2 Fayetteville-Manlius taking on #5 Liverpool, S4-A has #1 Ithaca and #4 Corning, and the S2-A has the #7 through #10 quartet of Saratoga, Guilderland, Shenendehowa, and Queensbury going at it. Class B has #2 Pittsford Mendon, #5 Brighton, #6 Broockport, and #9 Hoenoye Falls-Lima vying in S5-B, while #3 Somers and #4 Pearl River face off in S2-B. Class C will likely be quieter, though Pleasantville's match with Bronxville in S1-C should be lively. Class D has top battles in S3-D with Sauquoit Valley and Tully, in S4-D with Elmira-Notre Dame and Trumansburg, and in S6-D with Barker and Maple Grove. Things could get hairy out there, or hairless, depending on how you look at it.
  • 7 -- Will we be watching the championship in 3-D again?  After Mount Academy was moved up to Class C in 2013, Tully and Beaver River teams from S3-D won the next two NY-D championships before Lake Placid gave Section 7 its first team championship in 20 years when it captured the 2015 title. Now it looks like the view could be going back to 3-D with Sauquiot Valley and Tully sitting atop the Class D ratings, but Elmira-Notre Dame and Trumansburg would like to enhance the experience in spacetime by pushing for more of a 4-D perspective.
  • 6 -- Who's the new ruler of the C?  The one sectional race that we know will be crowning a new champ is Class C, as East Aurora has moved back up to Class B after winning a pair of championships during a two-year visit to C. The two teams that seem destined to slug it out for the 2016 title are of course the 2nd and 3rd place finishers from last year, Watkins Glen, which has won no state championships, and Mount Academy, which took crowns in Class D in 2011 and 2012. Going into the season the two teams are pretty evenly matched, so it will likely all be decided by who has the best development program over the next few months.
  • 5 -- Can the Vikings B stopped from going 4th?   Pittsford Mendon has taken the last three Class B championships by rebuilding a big pack every year. After losing their 2-3-4 runners from a States team that beat Maine-Endwell by 11 points, the Vikings with Nathan Lawler still in the lead may be running a little behind a Burnt Hills squad that has everyone but frontrunner Kevin Gideon back from last year's 3rd place team. Section 1 teams Somers and Pearl River and Pittsford Mendon's local rivals Brighton and Brockport are also running in close proximity. All in all, this is shaping up to be the most broadly and hotly contested year in Class B in recent times.
  • 4 -- Will the Knights have their day in the CHSAA? The NYC-area Catholic league has always been very heavily dependent on seniors, but last year it went to an extreme as 12 of the 13 top guys graduated at season's end. Both champion St. Anthony's and 3rd-place Fordham Prep lost their top 5 runners. Third-place Xavier didn't exactly come out of last June's graduation cataclysm unscathed as it lost top guy Christian Raslowsky and #3 Dominick Ronan, but with 3 of the top 5 back including Giancarlo Cipri as the new frontrunner, the Knights have enough to maybe win their first CHSAA title since Herbert Hoover was president (1931).
  • 3 -- Will the views be Gorgeous in Class A? Ithaca is famed for its gorges, and area residents proclaim a number of pun-nishing slogans about their prized landscape feature that should never be repeated in decent company. But this year Ithaca will also be attracting attention because of its top Little Red XC team, which quite simply has everyone back including frontrunner Jake Avery. But Ithaca will have lots of very decent company at the top, because the last two years' champs Fayetteville-Manlius and then Liverpool are running close behind, and Warwick Valley and Corning and a half dozen other candidates should make this the most heavily contested race in Class A in many years.
  • 2 -- Who's got the lean at the finish line? Gone are the top three guys from last year's Class A race, the winner from all the other States' class races, and all the top guys from the CHSAA. However, 7 of the top 12 guys from last year's Class A race are back, led by Noah Carey of Guilderland, who finished 4th and who will assume the mantle of NY's top guy. Down in Class B, Pittsford Mendon's Nathan Lawler seems to be the heir apparent to Noah Affolder and is only a junior. And if you think that the best method for improvement is to have a teammate pushing you every day, Sachem North's Jonathan Lauer and Christopher Tibbetts will both have someone pulling them to the top.
  • 1 -- Who's heading west? For the last two years, Liverpool and Fayetteville-Manlius have earned NY's automatic tickets to Portland for NXN, and St. Anthony's joined them in 2014 as an at-large. It wouldn't be surprising if the Warriors and Hornets were 1-2 at NXN-NY again or that the CHSAA sent a team, almost certainly Xavier. But with the pack of teams including Ithaca, Warwick Valley, Corning, Sachem North, and Saratoga circling around the top of Class A, a change is likely. And it would also not be surprising if a Class B team like Burnt Hills or Pittsford Mendon rose to the level of the top teams. It's way too early to be saying anything about who might be thinking about Foot Locker Nationals. All we know is that this year there are a lot more question marks than usual.