Indoor track and field teams from Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse will both head into next Wednesday’s Section III Class AA championship meet at SRC Arena with plenty of high expectations.
In the last tune-up for the sectional meet Thursday night, the girls Warriors picked up 63 points in the George Constantino Memorial Invitational to again finish second behind Fayetteville-Manlius (102 points), while the Northstars, with 38 points, edged out Jamesville-DeWitt (36 points) to finish third.
Ore Akinpelu sprinted to a time of 7.55 seconds in the 55-meter dash, second only to Nottingham’s Ke’Arra Allen, who won in 7.52 seconds, while Juliana Basla finished second in the 1,000-meter run in 3:06.43 to West Genesee’s Carly Benson, who pulled away and won in 3:00.64.
But no one beat Akinpelu and the Warriors in two relays. During the 4×400, Akinpelu paired with Yasmeen Griffin, Danelle Sims and Morgan Chewning-Kulick to win in 4:05.66, well clear of runner-up J-D (4:12.20) as C-NS had to settle for seventh place in 4:38.39.
Later in the meet, in the 4×200 relay, Hejal Patel joined Akinpelu, Sims and Griffin as, in 1:50.43, Liverpool held off Skaneateles (1:51.17) for the top spot, while C-NS (2:02.74) was 10th.
Alexis Bittel emerged with a victory in the triple jump, going 37 feet 5 ½ inches, nearly a foot better than East Syracuse Minoa’s Mia Montgomery (36’7”). Bittel also took sixth place in the 55-meter hurdles in 9.51 seconds, with C-NS’s Cheyanna Colin (9.64 seconds) in 10th place.
C-NS won twice in field events. Javielle Fanizzi unleashed a season-best long jump of 17’3 ½” to beat bout Auburn’s Shahnika Williams (17’1 ¾”) for the top spot, while in the high jump Nicole Herringhsaw, clearing 5 feet, won over a crowd that included teammate Brittany House (4’10”) in fifth place. Patel finished 10th in the high jump for Liverpool.
Meanwhile, in the 4×800 relay, C-NS saw Annia Marullo, Jilliann Norris, Taylor Parry and Madison Gross finish in 10:53.19, second to F-M (10:39.04) but ahead of Liverpool’s Abby McNamara, Vanessa Eberhard, Maia Henry and Mallory Woytowitz (10:57.39) in third place.
In the 3,000-meter run, Liverpool’s Jillian Stagnitta got to fourth place in 11:28.17, edging out McNamara (11:28.20), who was fifth. Stagnitta also went 5:09.35 in the 1,500-meter run, beating out C-NS’s Mia Pestle (5:10.16) to finish sixth. Kelley Townley was fifth in the pole vault, clearing 8 feet.
The Northstars’ Megan Trubia got to eighth place in the 3,000 in 12:13.97 as Giovanna Pascarella finished 12th. Marie LeRoy was eighth in the 300-meter dash in 45.99 seconds, with Liverpool’s Natalie Kurz and Patel 13th and 14th, respectively, and C-NS saw Parry get eighth place (3:13.59) and Marullo 10th (3:16.86) in the 1,000.
