The course for the XC championships at Wayne HS in 2017 was partly frozen tundra and partly a thawed-out ocean of mud. Muck was everywhere, including a river of it in the high school hallways and gym that flowed in during presentation ceremonies. And though it was a frightful site, the janitors tasked with cleaning everything up in the building just shrugged and said, "You should have seen it last weekend," after the much bigger Section 5 State Qualifier.
The boys races went first in the morning in relatively better conditions. We could show you one of the girls races from late in the afternoon when things got really really bad, but the truth is as Jack Nicholson stated in A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth!" It was that bad, and as Katherine Lee while leading in the final sorry pack of runners for Girls Class B exclaimed, "That was horrible. I never want to have to do this again."
So instead we feature Boys Class B, which is far less stomach-churning and featured great action. There was little suspense about who would win the team battle as Burnt Hills was set for a repeat and would place five runners in among the top 17 finishers. But the individual battle was definitely going to be a good one as defending champ Nathan Lawler of Pittsford Mendon was being challenged by Maine-Endwell's Parker Stokes who had just posted the season's best speed rating of 192 at the Section 4 State Qualifiers. Burnt Hills' Tyler Berg and Aidan Gillooley were also coming off a 1-2 finish in Section 2 SQs that made them look dangerous.
As the legs of Lawler, Stokes, Gillooley and Berg show in the pics below, there was mud. But again, this was nothing like what the girls slogged through. Someday maybe the world will be ready for Wayne's last four races too.
