On both the boys and girls sides, Baldwinsville’s track and field athletes thrived in the summer heat during Thursday’s Section III state qualifying meet at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium.
Alec Peinkofer is heading to this weekend’s state championships at Middletown, the senior set to cap his high school career in the Division I (large school) 800-meter run. At the qualifier, Peinkofer finished in one minutes, 54.73 seconds, beating Liverpool’s Alex Christensen by 3.66 seconds.
Meanwhile, in the 400-meter dash, the Bees went 1-2, as Nate Wicks and Jeff Mahar pulled away from the field, Wicks prevailing in 50.60 seconds and Mahar getting second place in 50.79 seconds.
In girls action, Emily Soeder was victorious in the high jump, clearing 5 feet 3 inches with fewer misses than Rome Free Academy’s Dana Husband. Shawn Calnan was third in the boys high jump, only able to top 6 feet.
B’ville almost added a victory in the boys 4×400 relay, as Wicks and Mahar, teaming with Brennan LaQue and Dan Walker, went back and forth with Fayetteville-Manlius throughout the race before Austin Perez inched away from Wicks in the homestretch and the Hornets won, 3:24.45 to the Bees’ time of 3:25.92.
It was the same story in the 4×100 girls relay. Angelica Tomasello, Gabby Jordan, Stephanie Vasteno and Cierra Allen pushed B’ville to a time of 49.71 seconds, topping everyone except Liverpool, who won in 49.08 seconds.
As if that wasn’t close enough, Allen, in the 400-meter dash Division I final, hit the line in 59.16 seconds, and still was second, 0.01 seconds behind Corcoran’s Patrice Williams, who prevailed in 59.15 seconds as Katie Wicks finished sixth in 1:05.06.
In the 4×400, Allen, Wicks, Mackenzie Ross and Marissa Lathrop were second in 3:59.10, again with Liverpool (3:58.06) on top. Julia Johnson, Meghan Hull, Kelley Hull and Nicole Piontkowski finished the 4×800 in 10:21.13, fourth among Division I sides.
Ross, on her own, took second place in the 800-meter run in 2:16.26 to Jamesville-DeWitt’s Rachel Fairbanks (2:15.54). Annie Peterson put up a time of 7:30.18 in the 2,000-meter steeplechase, second in Division I to West Genesee’s Laura Left (7:08.24), while Rachael Miller was third in the 1,500-meter run in 4:55.65.
In the boys 3,000 steeplechase, Jack Martin, in 10:14.10, got second to Auburn’s Jordan Middleton (9:53.18), while Josh Perez finished in 10:54.61. Jordan was fourth in the 100-meter dash (13.03 seconds), with Vasteno seventh, as Hannah Wood took fifth (17.34 seconds) in the 100-meter hurdles. Carlie McNamara had a fourth-place discus throw of 87 feet.
