When all was tallied, the Chittenango and Cazenovia boys indoor track and field teams ended up right next to each other in the standings of last Wednesday night’s Onondaga High School League Division II championships at Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena.
The Bears posted 67 points for fourth place, just behind Institute of Technology Central (69 points) in third place, while the Lakers had 61 points for fifth place. Marcellus topped the field, winning with 95 points as Westhill-Bishop Ludden (75 points) got the runner-up spot.
Unlike with regular-season meets, where top-eight finishers got points, only those that finished in the top six picked up points, a format similar to previous years.
Mike Capeling immediately put Chittenango in the win column in the meet’s first boys race, the 3,200-meter run. In a time of 10 minutes, 21.68 seconds, he pulled away from a pack that included teammate Ersilio Cerminero, who was fourth in 10:38.93 as Dave Gratien finished seventh.
But in the very next race, the 4×400 relay, it was Cazenovia’s turn to triumph. Alec Boone, James Pavelchak, Sean McPherson and Jacob Olkowski posted 3:41.52 to finish more than 11 seconds ahead of runner-up Phoenix (3:52.68) as the Bears got fifth place in 3;55.35.
Chittenango’s Mike Stanton gained a victory in the long jump, his top leap of 19 feet 3 ¾ inches enough to beat out Cazenovia’s Ray Satchwell, who was second with 18’11”.
Satchwell would go on to get fifth place in the triple jump, going 36’8 ½” as teammate Aiden Emhoff (35’3 ¾”) was sixth, with Satchwell also clearing 5’4” in the high jump to tie for fourth place as Dalton Sevier and Colton Killany (5’2”) shared sixth place.
Boone didn’t stop with his relay title, going 6.97 seconds to finish second behind ITC’s Nyshawn Jennings (6.89 seconds) in the 55-meter dash. Stanton got third place in 6.99 seconds as Jacobi Dwyer was fourth in seven seconds flat. Pavelchak finished seventh in 7.02 seconds as Boone, in the 300-meter dash, was fourth in 38.63 seconds, beating out Stanton (38.89 seconds) in fifth place as Dwyer was eighth and Pavelchak ninth.
Capeling returned to give the Bears a third-place finish in the 1,000-meter run in 2:46.32, with Jacob Blaszkow fifth in 2:51.48. In the mile, Capeling went 4:43.07 for another third-place finish, with Cerminero eighth.
The Lakers’ Will Kmetz was third in the shot put with a toss of 41’4 ½” as Chittenango’s Dieago Prado was sixth (38’3 ¾”) and Nate Spangler seventh (38’2 ½”) for the Lakers. Prado would get third place in the weight throw, heaving it 43’8”, while Spangler was fourth with 39’3 ¼” and Annotto was fifth with 38’1 ¼”. Kmetz was seventh with 36’4 ½”.
Justin Gagnon gained fourth place in the 55 hurdles in 9.17 seconds, with Olkowski sixth in 9.72 seconds. Also, Wendel and DeRochie were eighth and 10th, respectively, in the 1,000, while Race was 10th in the 600.
In the 4×800 relay, the Bears’ quartet of Blaszkow, Caleb Prenoveau, Dylan Price and Matt Morak was second in 9:10.14 behind Marcellus (8:58.15), while Cazenovia was fifth in 10:03.34 thanks to the quartet of Noah DeRochie, John Henry Light-Olson, Cormac Race and Zach Wendel.
Led by McPherson, Gagnon, Angelo Annotto and Aiden Emhoff, Cazenovia (1;44.56) beat out Chittenango (1:45.05) for fifth place in the 4×200 relay. Prenoveau was seventh in the 600-meter run in 1;35:35 as Andrew Whaley was ninth in the 55-meter hurdles.
