by Kurt Wheeler
The Cazenovia girls indoor track team won seven of 14 events and broke a school record as they finished first among 14 teams at the DiMao Invitational hosted by Colgate University on Tuesday night.
By piling up 101 points, the Lakers outdistanced Class B rival Clinton (80), Class AA power Rome Free Academy (64.5) and 11 other squads in the field.
Grace Dolan headlined the meet as she led a first place effort in the 500-meter dash relay event with Peyton Basic and set a new school record for that distance with a time of 1:24.42. Dolan returned later in the meet to help the distance medley relay team of Claire Braaten, Anna Reger and Carley Lounsbury to a fourth-place finish in 14:42.88.
Cazenovia’s sprinters were also outstanding throughout the competition as Chloe Smith (6.60 seconds) and Savannah Johnson (6.84) combined to tie for first in the 45-meter dash. Katie Whitney also ran an excellent time of 6.88 seconds.
Johnson (27.7 second leg) returned to anchor the 4×200 meter relay of Smith, Riley Knapp and Madison Jones to a first place finish in a time of 1:54.75, beating out Oxford Academy by one-hundredth of a second.
The 4×400 meter relay was equally successful, running to a first place time of 4:32.14. Molly Dolan (1:07.6) led off the relay of Ainsly Schug and Peyton Basic with Melanie Michael (1:07.9) anchoring the team to victory.
Michael also led the Lakers’ hurdle relay to a win, running the 50 in 8.95 seconds (first place) to partner with Lili Gavitt (second place, 9.34) for first as a team. Bonnie Pittman also had her best race of the year, finishing seventh in 9.69 seconds.
The Lakers’ distance runners were led by Molly Hart who ran a career best time of 5:16.66 in the 1,500-meter run for second as an individual. She teamed up with Claire Braaten (5:36.89) to capture second as a relay. Carley Lounsbury (2:41.11) led the 800-meter runners to sixth place with Anna Reger adding a 2:50.88 and Mia Chesbrough a 2:51.56.
Cazenovia’s jumpers led the way in the field events as Chloe Smith (15 feet 5 1/4 inches) combined with Lili Gavitt (14 feet) for first in the long jump. Gavitt topped the high jump event (4’8″) to team with Katie Pavelchak (4’6″) to tie for first as a relay.
Christina Brown equaled her career best of 7’6″ in the pole vault to lead Kiara Dolan (personal best of 7 feet) and Carley Lounsbury (7 feet) to third as a team as all three vaulters qualified for sectionals. Kylie Anthony had her best triple jump of the season of 29’10 1/4″ to combine with Ava Gavitt for third place.
Claire Edwards led the Laker throwers, tossing the shot 30’2″ to claim fourth as an individual and partner with Lily Sorbello (23’1″) for fifth as a team. Sorbello led Cazenovia in the weight throw, nearing her season best with an effort of 26’1″ to partner with Quinlan Emhoff (23’3″) for seventh place.
The Lakers will be back in action this Saturday at OCC’s SRC Arena in its final regular season meet of the year. The girls will hope to ride their winning momentum from the DiMao meet into the post-season as it pursues league and sectional titles in 2020 to add to their streak of seven each from 2011 to 2017.
