By himself, Fayetteville-Manlius boys track and field star Alex Hatz accounted for more than half his team’s points during Wednesday’s Section III Class AA championship meet at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium.
F-M had 39 points, putting them eighth in a field of 14 teams as several competitors were sidelined due to illness. CNS, the host team, won with 103 points.
Hatz began his star turn in the mile. From the gun, he ran to the front and kept pulling away, never letting up on his pace as he crossed the line in 4:08.18, a new personal best. He was more than 19 seconds ahead of the runner-up, West Genesee’s Steve Houghmaster.
Less than an hour later, in the 800-meter run, Hatz again dominated the field, and while it was not a personal record, his time of 1:55.81 still beat Corcoran’s Trenton Sparks (2:00.70) by nearly five seconds.
Karl Thomson threw the discus 133 feet 10 inches for third place, then added a fifth (47 feet 2 1/2 inches) in the shot put as Tyler Rhnehart cleared 10 feet 6 inches for fourth place in the pole vault.
Chris Ruggeri claimed third place in the pentathlon with 2,681 points, exactly 100 points behind the winner, Utica Proctor’s Pedrick O’Garro (2,781). Mike Matonse ran to sixth in the 400-meter hurdles in 59.84 seconds.