It proved to be a memorable Wednesday for the Fayetteville-Manlius running program, both in and out of competition.
The noncompetitive part came first, as four different Hornet superstars signed their national letters of intent to continue their careers at the NCAA Division I level. Three of them were part of F-M’s four-time national champions girls cross country team.
Molly Malone is staying at home, going to Syracuse University. Kathryn Fanning heads east to the University of Albany, while Mackenzie Carter is heading back to the Northwest and will run at the University of Washington.
At the same time, F-M boys star Alex Hatz made official that he is going to the University of Wisconsin. Hatz, who is back competing again after missing much of the cross country season due to illness, is joining a Badger team that finished seventh at last year’s NCAA championships.
Once that was done, the F-M girls went back to work — or more specifically, they traveled to Manley Field House to battle for the Section III Class AA indoor championship.
The Hornets got 96 points, beating everyone in the AA field — except Cicero-North Syracuse, who pulled out the victory with 107 points.
Carter and Fanning, along with Katie Sischo and Courtney Chapman, went out and, in the 4×800 relay, posted a time of 9:28.82 that beat CNS by nearly half a minute.
Chapman would prevail twice on her own, taking the 1,000-meter run in 2:54.98 as Carter (2:59.29) finished fourth. And in the 1,500-meter run, Chapman claimed a victory in 4:47.16, with Carter running to third place in 4:58.11.
Elsewhere, Heather Martin and Sischo went 1-2 in the 600-meter run, Martin prevailing in 1:40.51, just ahead of Sischo (1:40.87) at the wire. Jillian Fanning was second in the 3,000-meter run (10:22.92) as Maggie Malone (10:43.18) took sixth.
As if that wasn’t enough, Martin and Sischo joined Audrey Wallace and Kathryn Fanning as they won the 4×400 relay, F-M posting a time of 4:08.03, more than 14 seconds ahead of runner-up CNS.
Alyssa Hamel, Alex Seabury, Molly Levy and Isabel Carapella earned second place in the 4×200 relay in 1:52.44. Seabury, on her own, was second in the long jump, going 16 feet 10 inches, as Hamel was sixth in the 55-meter hurdles.
