Lake Placid senior Jesse Izzo was the top finisher for the Blue Bombers in Saturday’s NYSPHSAA cross country championships. (Provided photo — Kris Alberga)

The Lake Placid boys and girls teams finished the NYSPHSAA cross country championships pretty much where they were projected to be as teams, but individual runners put up a couple of surprises.

The Blue Bombers boys team was projected to place fifth in the field of 10 teams, and the boys ended up in sixth with 117 points, tied with Shelter Island, who took fifth. In team scoring, Beaver River topped the field with 32 points.

Jesse Izzo led the way for Lake Placid, earning a 28th-place finish in 18 minutes, 9.7 seconds. Kal Lewis of Shelter Island won the race in 16:23.3.

Mike Skutt (18:29.9) was 35th, Max Flanigan (18:45.8) finished 44th, Noah Fine (18:55.6) placed 48th and Van Ledger (19:34.8) took 70th in the field of 118 runners. Gunnar Anthony (20:53.4) was 97th and Zach Gavin (21:34.4) rounded out the Blue Bombers’ contingent in 105th.

Izzo said he was ended up about where he expected, and that was fine with him.

Lake Placid’s Sara Rose-McCandlish, left, and sister Annie Rose-McCandlish run in a pack during Saturday’s NYSPHSAA cross country championships on Long Island. Tupper Lake runner Sandra Kwasniak can be seen on the far right. (Provided photo — Kris Alberga)

“I felt pretty good. I may have started a little too fast, but I’m OK with that,” he said. “I ended up right where I wanted to be, so it all worked out.”

The most well-known feature of the course at Sunken Meadow State Park on Long Island is a feature known as Cardiac Hill, and Izzo just kind of laughed when asked about it.

“That is tough; it’s so steep that it’s almost to the point where you think in your mind ‘Is this faster to walk?'” he said. “It’s very difficult, and I was hurting going up that.

“It’s been a pretty good season, we’ve had a good team all year. But we’ve never really been healthy all at the same time. We never really clicked together all at the same moment, but we have a very good team this year and I’m very happy with how we turned out.”

Both the boys and girls teams won the Section VII, Class D championships little more than a week ago, and were able to send full seven-member teams to the state meet.

For the girls, sophomore Marli Damp was the top finisher, taking 43rd in the field of 105 with a time of 22:03.8. Harley Cohen (22:35.5) placed 47th, Sara Rose-McCandlish (23:45.3) was 63rd, Anya Morgan (23:55.7) was 66th and freshman Annie Rose-McCandlish (24:02.8) was 69th. Ellen Lansing (25:31.9) placed 83rd and Sandra Harper rounded out the team in 98th with a time off 29:25.6.

Damp, who has struggled a bit this season, said a recent change to her diet led to her team-topping performance Saturday.

“I’m actually feeling really good about today’s race because I haven’t had the best season and I had a really good race today,” she said. “I’ve been on iron supplements and just been trying to rest and listen to my coaches and I guess it worked out for me.”

Damp said she also considered walking on Cardiac Hill, but pushed through.

“It was really steep,” she laughed. “Just fast steps and I just kept telling myself not to walk. And once I got to the top I just pushed it over and followed through on the downhill. But I get why they call it Cardiac Hill.”

Annie Rose-McCandlish and Fine each qualified for this coming Saturday’s Federation meet in Wappingers Falls. The Federation meet will have about 300 runners from around the state and will include public and private schools, and some of the largest schools in the Northeast from New York City.

“I’d say all my kids kind of ran how I’d hope,” Lake Placid coach Mel Frazer said. “They were focused and did their best, so it was a good day. My kids you could see had benefits on the uphills, so I think they were properly trained for it.”

Both the Lake Placid boys and girls teams are relatively young, and Frazer thinks that bodes well for the future.

“I think especially the girls team will continue to be really strong,” she said. “The boys team, I’m losing seniors, but I’m gaining some. They’ll both be tops in our section, and hopefully other places as well.”