Though she had an option to compete in both of the sprints, Cazenovia senior Ashley Winn chose to focus on the 55-meter dash during Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association indoor track and field championship meet at Cornell University’s Barton Hall.
It turned out to be a good choice, because Winn would best most of the top sprinters in the state and survive two tense rounds to reach the championship round.
Running in the first of five preliminary heats, Winn took second place in 7.23 seconds to Kadecia Bird (Medgar Evers), who was first in 7.17 seconds.
Then, in the semifinals, Winn improved to 7.22 seconds, again getting second place, this time behind Taft’s Kimberly Bailey. By 0.001 seconds, that made Winn the fourth-fastest qualifier for the championship round behind Bird, Bailey and another Evers runner, Paige Thompson Charles.
In the final, Winn would lose a bit of her speed, finishing in 7.27 seconds. That would put her in seventh place overall as Baird blazed to the state title in 7.08 seconds and Bailey (7.12 seconds) took the runner-up spot.
Later in the meet, Winn’s sprint teammate, Clare Costello, was part of the Section III team in the Instersectional Medley Relay.
Joined by Rachel Garn (Marcellus), Kaitlyn Neal (Skaneateles) and Emily Mizer (Westhill/Bishop Ludden), Costello helped the Section III side finish eighth out of 11 teams with a time of 10 minutes, 44.01 seconds. Section XI (Suffolk County, Long Island) won in 10:22 flat.
