For a long time, the Marcellus track and field program operated in an unusual way, training at home, but always going elsewhere for meets because the school lacked an all-weather surface.
All of that changed last Wednesday afternoon, when the Mustangs greeted Westhill and Hannibal for a three-way OHSL Liberty division meet.
Finally at home, Marcellus gained splits in both the male and female divisions, easily beating Hannibal on both fronts, but dropping narrow decisions to Westhill.
On the boys side, Matt Weeks, Chris Stogsdill and Michael Quercia combined for eight individual titles, yet the Mustangs still lost to Westhill 77-64 as it defeated Hannibal 96-45.
Weeks cleared 5 feet 7 inches to win the high jump, and also claimed the triple jump by going 37 feet 1 inch and took the title in the long jump with a leap of 18 feet 8 inches.
Stogsdill displayed his distance-running skill on the new oval, running the mile in 4:36 flat, one of the fastest Section III times of the season, and also claiming the 3,200-meter race in a clocking of 9:54.1. He also won the 400-meter dash in 55.5 seconds.
As for Quercia, he emerged as a threat in the 100-meter dash, winning in 11.9 seconds, and also taking the 200-meter dash in 24.3 seconds.
Westhill countered by piling up points in the relays, sweeping the 4×100 (47.6 seconds), 4×400 (3:48.8) and 4×800 (9:11.2) titles.
Over in the girls meet, Marcellus engineered its own relay sweep to smother Hannibal 96-36, yet still took a 71-69 loss to Westhill.
Ariel Briggs, Carrie Carlton, Emily Garrant and Kaelyn Madden combined to take the 4×800 (10:23.41). Lindsey Forte, Jennifer Richmond and Chelsea Tarolli all appeared in the 4×100 (55.6 seconds) and 4×400 (4:34.2) relays, with Erin Corcoran in the 4×100 and Kayla Schmidt in the 4×400.
Outside of that, Forte was the Mustangs’ lone individual winner, running the 100-meter dash in 13.3 seconds and covering the 400-meter hurdles in 1:08.5.
Marcellus will host one more OHSL Liberty meet this season, taking on Solvay and Bishop Ludden next Tuesday.
