One more bit of regular-season work remained for the area’s indoor track and field teams – including Fayetteville-Manlius, who continued its month-long win streak by claiming both ends of the Fred Kirschenheiter Memorial Invitational at SRC Arena.
During Thursday night’s girls meet, the Hornets picked up 81 points. Jamesville-DeWitt nearly grabbed the runner-up spot as it earned 44 points, just behind second-place Liverpool (46 points). East Syracuse-Minoa was eighth with 21 points.
All three local teams would win events, though. In F-M’s case, that meant Mary Barger edging J-D’s Rachel Fairbanks, 2:58.82 to 2:58.95, for first place in the 1,000-meter run, while Olivia Ryan prevailed in the 600-meter run in 1:41.05.
The Hornets also beat the field in the 4×800 relay, where Barger, Katie Brislin, Annika Avery and Alana Pearl tore to a time of 9:30.99. Fairbanks, Kim Walsh, Laura Wengert and Emilee Carpenter gave J-D a third-place finish in 10:27.13 as ESM was fifth in 10:19.01.
In the 4×400 relay, a different F-M quartet, composed of Christine Lavoie, Anna Perrotti, McKenna Everding and Mikayla Ruthig, beat the field, holding off Mexico, 4:23.79 to 4:25.52.
J-D won twice in field events, including the long jump, where Sierra Vasiliou went 17 feet 3/4 inch, nearly a foot better than Cicero-North Syracuse’s Javielle Fanizzi (16’2 1/2″). Patrece Martin, in the triple jump, went 34’5″ and got past F-M’s Christabel Ezidiegwu (34’3 3/4″), who was a close second.
ESM’s main moment came in the high jump, where Nina Zesky, by clearing 5’1″, was four inches better than a group of five jumpers, including F-M’s Anna Castro (4’9″). Also for the Spartans, Natalie Marra was fourth in the 1,500-meter run (4:57.06), just ahead of CBA’s Maire-Kate McGlynn in fifth and F-M’s Avery in sixth, and Gabby Pallotta was sixth in the 3,000-meter run.
The Hornets had to settle for runner-up finishes in the 1,500, where Pearl (4:36.36) could not catch West Genesee’s Laura Leff (4:33.96), and the 3,000, where Michelle Duffy (10:26.85) and Jenna Farrell (10:31.04) were second and third, respectively, behind Fabius-Pompey’s Erin McConnell, who won in 10:17.27.
Elsewhere, Brislin was fourth in the 300-meter dash, with J-D’s Tangela Hightower fourth in the shot put (31’3 1/4″) and Ally Fox sixth in the 55-meter dash. The Rams’ Taylor-Rae Danforth rose to fifth (7′) in the pole vault as Fox ran a leg for J-D in the 4×200 relay and took fifth in 1:55.50, edging F-M (1:55.77) in sixth.
A day earlier, The boys Hornets dominated its portion of the Kirschenheiter meet, earning 76 points, nearly twice the total of runner-up C-NS, who with 41 points edged Corcoran (40) for the second spot.
It took exactly nine minutes, 21 seconds for Nick Ryan to tear to victory in the 3,200-meter run, with Riley Hughes second in 10:09.10. And in the 4×800 relay, Ryan, teaming with Colin Fitzgibbons, Connor Farrell and Bryce Millar, prevailed in 8:22.47 as Liverpool (8:40.12) was nearly 18 seconds behind.
Already, Fitzgibbons had won the mile, covering those 1,600 meters in 4:32.11 to edge C-NS’s Anthony Lumia by 0.70 seconds, while Farrell engaged in a 1,000-meter classic with Mexico’s James Gowans, prevailing by 0.03 seconds, 2:34.27 to Gowans’ 2:34.30.
Millar, meanwhile, rose to third place in the 600-meter run (1:28.24) as Charlie Beeler, in 1:27.49, just missed victory, second behind Tully’s Nate Delles (1:27.24). Parker Noble, Ed Cheatham, Luke Jordan and Eli Pinner were second in the 4×200 relay in 1:40.65.
It was J-D, whose total of 22 points tied Nottingham for seventh in the team standings, that won the 4×200, seeing Zach Liebmann, Mike Montanez, Nate Sturgeon and Taumeras Howard pound to a time of 1:37.95 to beat F-M by 2.77 seconds.
Then, in the 4×400 relay, it was CBA beating the field, the quartet of Jack Brower, Zach Zajdel, Liam Price and Matt Stedman posting a time of 3:37.32, topping runner-up Solvay (3:39.58) by 2.36 seconds. F-M was sixth in 3:52.76.
Liebmann also gave J-D a second-place finish in the pole vault, clearing 12’6″, topped only by Liverpool’s Travis Chewning-Kulick (12’9″) as ESM’s Corey Vollmer was fifth, clearing 11′. Howard cleared 5’10” for fifth place in the high jump.
F-M’s Kyle Barber was fourth in the triple jump (39’7 1/2″) and sixth in the 55-meter hurdles behind J-D’s Sturgeon, who was fifth in 8.52 seconds. ESM’s Joe Coogan just missed the points, taking seventh (1:31.87) in the 600, with F-M’s Cheatham seventh in the 300-meter dash.
