With all the points it piled up in distance events, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls indoor track and field team came close to snatching the top spot at last Wednesday night’s John Arcaro Memorial Invitational at Manley Field House.
The Hornets finished with 62 points, beating everyone except Cicero-North Syracuse, who won for the first time this season at Manley with 74 points. Liverpool, winners of the previous three Manley events, got third place with 54 points.
F-M’s points came from just four events, all of which it dominated. In the 4×800 relay, Molly Malone, Mackenzie Carter, Kristen Buchan and Hannah Luber posted a top time of 9:41.57 that beat runner-up CNS by more than eight seconds.
Moving to the individual events, Malone did an even greater job in the 500-meter run, the sophomore setting a new Section III record by posting a time of 1:17.01 as teammate Jessica Marini took third place (1:20.79) and CBA’s Melissa Zajdel (1:18.70) slid between them for second place.
As for Carter, she would finish second in the 1,500-meter run, in 4:53.65, as Jocelyn Richards pulled away from the field to win in 4:46.81.
This same pattern was evident in the 3,000-meter run, where freshman Courtney Chapman won in a clocking of 10:27.91 and sophomore Kathryn Fanning got second place, in 10:34.45.
Jamesville-DeWitt finished sixth in the team standings, with 14 points, as Natalie Mannion got third place in the high jump (4 feet 10 inches) and Eileen Cody ran to third place in the 1,500 in 4:54.89 behind the F-M duo of Carter and Richards.
Mannion, Colline Miller, Lindsay Royer and Kathryn Blackley combined for a fifth (1:53.88) in the 4×200 relay. East Syracuse-Minoa’s Jill Mitchell sprinted to third place in the 55-meter dash in 7.75 seconds.
In the boys edition of the Arcaro meet, F-M won twice, earning 20 points for sixth place in the standings as CNS (78 points) won big. J-D was 10th, with 15 points, as ESM got 9.5 points and CBA earned nine points.
Jamal Johnson gave the Hornets a victory in the 55-meter dash for the second time in as many weeks, his time of 6.57 seconds enough to hold off Henninger teammates Greg Spears (6.62) and Andre Britton (6.63). CBA’s Anthony Casciano was fourth in 6.73 seconds.
Alex Hatz got F-M’s other title, outrunning Marcellus standout Chris Stogsdill in a 1,500-meter classic where Hatz won in a time of 4:05.09, just 1.09 seconds ahead of Stogsdill.
As for ESM, Jeff Sweeney ran to fourth place in the 500-meter dash in 1:10.86, just as his teammate, Nick Sadlocha, also took fourth, in the 3,000 (9:27.53), and Josh Haas shared sixth place in the pole vault.
J-D fared best in that pole vault, where Adam Tyson was alone in second place, clearing 12 feet as CNS’s Craig Barber (12 feet 6 inches) prevailed. Tyson was also sixth in the 55-meter hurdles in 8.84 seconds.
David Salbert gave the Red Rams a third-place finish in the triple jump, going 41 feet 3/4 inch. CBA’s Jim Mather (40 feet 6 3/4 inches) took fourth place.
The local teams are back at Manley Monday night for the George Constantino Relays, the last regular-season event before sectional and league championships go on the line later in February.
