All through Friday and Saturday, a series of high-profile track and field meets kept local boys and girls teams in the spotlight.
Marcellus sent its stars to Friday’s New Hartford Invitational, where Mike Quercia would take over in middle-distance races, with some help from Jesse Garn.
In the 800-meter run, Quercia and Garn dueled all the way to the finish line, but Quercia prevailed in a time of 1:56.32 as Garn, in 1:56.79, had to settle for second place.
Together, they were three seconds ahead of the field.
Turning to the 400-meter dash, Quercia tore to another victory in 48.27 seconds, 1.49 seconds ahead of South Jefferson’s Curtis Wilson. In the 4×400 relay, Quercia, Garn, Ryan Manahan and Kevin Daily finished in 3:29.50, second only to Holland Patent, who won in 3:27.99.
Meanwhile, at CBA’s Brother Basilian Invitational, another Mustang standout, Nick Huss, prevailed in the pole vault, clearing 11 feet as Rob Coon (10 feet) finished third. Tom Riccardi was fourth in the mile (4:42.8) as Keith Shields got fourth in the 110 high hurdles.
Moving to the girls side at CBA, the Mustangs’ Chelsea Tarolli was second in the 100-meter dash (13.5 seconds) as Carley Kohl cleared 8 feet for second place in the pole vault. Katherine Busa took third in the 100 hurdles in 17.8 seconds. Rachel Garn was third in the 1,500 in 5:00.2. The Mustangs were second in the 4×100 in 54.2 seconds.
Solvay’s C.J. Brooks struck again at New Hartford, as he threw the shot put 51 feet 1/2 inch to beat Cicero-North Syracuse’s Jared Thomson by nearly five feet.
Matt Fedrizzi claimed third place in the mile in 4:29.73 as he also took sixth in the 800. Jerry Santoferrara cleared 11 feet for fourth place in the pole vault, while Ed Buczakowski got seventh place in the 400 hurdles.
Jordan-Elbridge was back in action Saturday, at the New Hartford Invitational, where the boys Eagles earned 39 points for seventh place in a 15-team field.
Mike Marrero, Cody Stanton, Carlin Coomey and Jack Gugel combined to get second place in the distance medley relay in 11:13.47, behind only Liverpool (11:05.63). Also, Marrero was third in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (10:30.34), with Steve Slonosky in sixth place (10:57.46). Gugel also was fourth in the unseeded mile.
Kalys Zhumakady Uulu finished third in the pole vault, clearing 9 feet 6 inches. Conlan, who got fifth in the 100 (11.77 seconds), combined with Uulu, Andrew Forward and Nick Byrnes for fourth place in the 4×100 relay in 48.25 seconds.
The J-E girls had 12 points, most of them from Lisa Kimak clearing 4 feet 10 inches to tie for the top spot in the high jump, though Jenise Gilbert (Living Word) won with fewer overall misses.
Courtney Hourigan earned sixth place in the pentathlon with 1,845 points. The Eagles were fifth in the sprint medley relay (4:32.87) and sixth in both the 4×100 (54.21 seconds) and distance medley (14:06.31) relays.
Westhill, meanwhile, would pick up 50 points at Chittenango on the boys side, earning fifth place.
Dan Ross claimed second place in the long jump, going 18 feet 8 3/4 inches, earned third place in the high jump (5 feet 8 inches) and got sixth in the triple jump. Mitch Lamb ran to second in the unseeded mile in 4:58.14.
Jack Honis was third in the 110 high hurdles in 16.05 seconds and fourth in the 400 hurdles (1:03.96), also joining Ross, Peter Clark and Ryan Brennan for third place in the 1,600 sprint medley (3:47.82). Brennan grabbed third place in the 400-meter dash (54.24 seconds), where Clark was sixth. Justin Biles took sixth in the high jump and Mike Herholtz was sixth in the pole vault.
