Again propped up by its deep core of distance runners, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls indoor track and field team made a big push to win the Section III Class A championship meet last Wednesday at Manley Field House.

When all was added up, the Hornets had 106 points — a number that topped everyone except Cicero-North Syracuse, who won with 135 points.

In all, 70 points came from F-M’s near-sweep of the distance events. Mackenzie Carter started the trend when, in the 3,000-meter run, she recorded a top time of 10:25.60 as fellow freshman Hannah Luber (10:46.24) finished second.

More youthful talent emerged in the 1,500, where freshman Kathryn Fanning won with a clocking of 4:54.48, with Kathryn Buchan (5:01.99) taking the runner-up spot.

In yet another 1-2 finish, Hilary Hooley needed 3:06.27 to prevail in the 1,000-meter run, while Buchan (3:07.41) again settled for second place.

Buchan would get to the front in the 600-meter run, needing 1:38.69 to win that event as Jessica Hauser (1:40.06) landed in third place.

Hauser would also team with Hooley, Fanning and Molly Malone for a victory in the 4×800 relay in 9:48.87. In the 4×400, Hauser, Jessica Hotchkiss, Jess Marini and Kathleen Fletcher finished second (4:13.61) to CNS (4:10.91), while Fletcher, Marini, Claire Luber and Alex Seabury got fourth (1:52.94) in the 4×200 relay.

Seabury, an eighth-grader, had a bigger impact in the long jump, going 16 feet 3 1/2 inches to take third place as she was also sixth in the 300-meter dash. Lindsey DuPell and Kate Bonsted were fourth and fifth, respectively, in the high jump. Luber was sixth in the 55-meter hurdles in 9.91 seconds.

The sectional meet had been pushed back a week by the Valentine’s Day snowstorm, meaning that it followed, by just two days, the state qualifier at Manley.

There, Carter had run the 3,000 in 10:31.19, a personal record until she broke it at the sectional meet. Hannah Luber (10:45.22) was second.

Buchan covered 1,500 meters in 4:49.04, just enough to make it to the March 3 state meet at Cornell University, while Fanning (4:57.06) earned third place. Hooley was third in the 1,000 in 3:05.34, and Jenny Devaney won the 1,500-meter race walk in 10:13.74. Buchan, Hooley, Hauser and Malone won the 4×800 relay in 9:30.32.

The big news at the boys state qualifier was that Tommy Gruenewald, sidelined by an illness, would not go to the state meet.

Instead, Geoff King would take his turn at the top, winning the 1,500-meter run in a time of 4:21.16. Jamal Johnson won the 55-meter dash in 6.48 seconds to qualify for the state meet, with Eric Thomson second in the pole vault as he cleared 12 feet.