Ryan, Walters overcome health scares to help F-M win again

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

PORTLAND -- Bad as things got Friday night for Sophie Ryan of Fayetteville-Manlius, she was determined with every fiber of her being to make the starting line and race for her team. 

Ryan suffered a bout of food poisoning at the team dinner Thursday night and her availability for the 10-time champions was in serious doubt Friday. 

She threw up on the bus back to the hotel from the course run-through. But late Friday afternoon her parents took her to a nearby hospital and she received three bags of intravenous fluids to counter her severe dehydration. She left the hospital at 1 a.m. Saturday morning, immediately fell asleep in a hotel room, and re-joined her team at breakfast. 

"I knew my girls needed me out there today and I'd rather die than let my team down," Ryan said. "And I wasn't dead yet."

Meanwhile, another of Manlius' top runners, Rebecca Walters, learned she had strep throat this week. She was on antibiotics for the past several days and doing everything possible to keep enough distance from her teammates so that she didn't make them sick, too. 

Somehow, some way, the No. 1-ranked team in the U.S. overcame more adversity than it has faced before a big race perhaps ever. 

Ryan finished 16th in the team scoring as F-M's third runner. Walters was the team's fourth, and her margin over Naperville North's fourth proved to be the difference between winning and losing. 

There were convulsions of emotion and spotaneous tears of relief for the 11-time champions when the announcement was made that Manlius had won again, this time by five points over the Illinois champions. Ryan stood on the dais with a cotton ball taped to the inside of her elbow where the IV line had been, and wore a hospital bracelet on her wrist.

"This is our greatest accomplishment ever, this victory," said an emotional coach Bill Aris, who didn't get a minute of sleep Friday night. 

Manlius extended its dominance of the girls competition to 11 victories in the past 12 years. 

And right before the drama of that race unfolded, the school's boys delivered their best race of the season and finished second behind champion Loudoun Valley VA (Purcelville).

"We were warming up and able to hear (the boys) got second place," Manlius No. 2 runner Phoebe White said. "It was exciting to know they ran better than they ever have before and it inspired us to do the same."

Ryan, for her part, delivered a moment that will go down in program history for its gritty toughness. 

"There were doubts that crept in (at the hospital), but I had to keep pushing them out," she said. "I didn't come this far to give up."

Manlius beat a game Naperville North team 89-94 in its closest win ever. And Naperville North was closing, with advantages at the fifth, sixth and seventh runners. 

Vail Valley (Battle Mountain CO) was third with 162 points, Keller TX was fourth with 205 points and Bozeman MT was fifth with 210.

As two of the top four runners on the team suffered in the hours leading up to the race, Claire Walters said that she and her Manlius teammates remained determined to dig deep on their behalf.

"At first we didn't know if they were going to be able to race," said Walters, who was fifth overall and scored two points for the team. "Both of them would have loved to be in our place, healthy and fine. We had to work the hardest we ever have for them because they're going to be giving everything they have."

Individually, Katelyn Tuohy capped her incredible sophomore season by running away from the field right from the starting line. Tuohy burned through an improbable 5:06 mile on soft, wet grass and went through 2 miles at 10:38. 

"I probably ran too fast that first mile," Tuohy said on the award stand.

Tuohy ran 16:44 and broke Katie Rainsberger's 2015 course record by 12 seconds.

Rainsberger was in attendance Saturday.

"That was an amzing performance. The way she took it out from the gun was really impressive," Rainsberger said. "For her to handle (the soft course conditions) the way she did was incredible."

There was a big gap behind Tuohy to Saratoga Springs' Kelsey Chmiel, who ran in second place nearly the whole way and finished 41 seconds back.

It was a great bounce-back by Chmiel, who was sick last week at the NXR New York meet and took 11th. 

"I've raced Katelyn a few times this year and I knew I couldn't keep up with her," Chmiel siad. 

Mariah Castillo of Saugus CA was a suprise third-place finisher in 17:36.8, surging past Katelynne Hart of Glenbard West IL in the final 400 meters. Hart was fourth in 17:41.6.