On both the female and male sides, track and field athletes from Baldwinsville would set some new standards during last weekend’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships at Union-Endicott.
Adrianna Straughter would contend in the girls Division I (large school) pentathlon. She would clear 5 feet 2 ¼ inches in her specialty, the long jump, in between a time of 15.93 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles and a shot put toss of 23’2 ¼”.
Moving to day two, Straughter picked up 589 points in the long jump and, with a time of 2:36.80 in the 800-meter run, finished with 3,009 points, improving upon the 2,941 points she earned to qualify and taking fifth place in Division I (large schools), sixth overall.
It was one of Straughter’s Section III teammates that won in Division I – Jamesville-DeWitt’s Alexandria Payne, who with 3,351 points claimed her division and was just 12 points behind the overall winner, South Seneca’s Emily Lavarnway.
Meanwhile, in the boys 4×400 relay, the Bees shattered its own school mark. Tyler Luciano, Kenny Stehle, Evan Vannatta and anchor Kieran Sheridan had posted 3:24.58 during the season, but that improved to 3:21.49 at the state meet, more than three seconds faster. That left B’ville in ninth place as Newburgh Free Academy (Section I) won the race in 3:14.05.
Sheridan, competing on his own in the boys 400-meter dash, improved from 49.77 second to 49.71, leaving him in 11th place as Huntington’s Kyree Johnson (46.56) prevailed. Freshman Karen Ekure was 13th in the girls 200-meter dash in 25.67 seconds, but she was the youngest competitor in that field.
