As they had done all spring, the Cicero-North Syracuse track and field teams made sure that no one in the CNY Counties League National division caught up to them.
Both the boys Northstars at home, and the girls Northstars at Rome Free Academy Stadium, claimed their respective league championship meets last Thursday in some of the season’s most raw conditions.
Ignoring all the rain and cold wind, the CNS boys defended its home track by accumulating 190.33 points, well clear of Liverpool (121 points) and Rome Free Academy (103.33 points) at day’s end.
Nathan MacNabb had a key role in the point total. He broke Liverpool’s usual domination of the distance races when, in the mile, he posted a time of 4:35.77 to edged past the Warriors’ Bryan Picciotto (4:36.51), with Ethan Hickey (4:40.40) in third.
Not only that, but MacNabb finished second in the 800-meter run (2:03.78) as Jake Whritenour (2:04.10) took third place. And in the 4×400 relay, MacNabb and Whritenour, along with Shaun Hyde and Mike Flume, combined to win in 3:39.55, nearly four seconds clear of RFA (3:43.31) in second place.
Andy Kahl also piled up points. He cleared 6 feet in the high jump to beat Liverpool’s T.J. Davis (5 feet 10 inches), then finished second to Davis in the 400-meter dash (52.79 seconds) as Tony Rogers (52.79 seconds) was third. Kahl also finished second in the triple jump, going 40 feet 9 inches, just ahead of teammate Eric Munoz (40 feet 9 inches) in third place.
Richie Lickfield won the discus, even though he and RFA’s Josiah Claypool both tossed it 135 feet 1 inch. Lickfield added a fourth (47 feet 10 1/4 inches) in the shot put, with Peter Foti (50 feet 1 inch) in third place.
Craig Barber needed to clear 11 feet 9 inches in the pole vault to hold off teammate Eric Sykora (11 feet 6 inches) and Liverpool’s Eric Osborne, with Dillon McKee (11 feet) taking fourth place.
Brandon Marlow and Devin Young teamed with Ben Brown and Chuck Haven to finish second in the 4×100 relay in 44.95 seconds, just behind Henninger (44.75 seconds) at the wire. Freshman Chris Buchanan took third place in the 3,200-meter run (10:24.56), while Carl Patzer got third in the pentathlon (1,912 points). Young (23.57 seconds) and Marlow were fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 200-meter dash.
As this was going on, CNS was putting up 160 points in the CNYCL National girls meet at RFA Stadium, enough to beat Liverpool (116 points) and Utica Proctor (114 points) for top honors.
Lindsay Raulli and Taylor Wendler set the tone in the distance-running events. Raulli won the 1,500-meter run (4:48.4), with Wendler second in 4:51.4, and the same thing happened in the 3,000-meter run as Raulli prevailed in 10:35.8 and Wendler (10:38.9) was close behind.
Elsewhere in distance races, McKaye Neumeister (2:25.2) and Nicole Campagna (2:29.4) were second and third, respectively, in the 800-meter run as Lauren Spink (2:30.8) finished fifth. Christina Sakowski ran to second in the 2,000-meter steeplechase in 8:01.4 as Schuyler Cary (8:10.6) claimed the third spot.
And in the 4×800 relay, Campagna, Spink, Shannon Bausinger and Dana Rinaldi teamed up as CNS prevailed in 10:09.1. All told, CNS got nearly half its points (76 in all) from this army of distance runners.
Elsewhere, Monique Roberts won the high jump, clearing 5 feet 2 inches, as Gina Campagna (5 feet) finished second. Robers also finished second in the 100-meter high hurdles (15.6 seconds), with Jasmine Thompson (15.9 seconds) in third place.
Neumeister went on to control the 400-meter hurdles, winning in a time of 1:06.4 as Brittany Casello (1:09.9) eased into third place.
In the 400-meter dash, Neumeister was fourth (1:01.5), while Alana Hotchkiss notched third place in the long jump, going 16 feet 1 inch. Roberts found time to finish fifth in the long jump and fifth in the shot put, while Kelly Langevin tossed the discus 99 feet 9 inches for fifth place.
