Fresh off setting a Section III record in the 600-meter run a week earlier, Fayetteville-Manlius girls indoor track and field runner Heather Martin sought more glory in last Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship meet at Cornell University’s Barton Hall.
Martin could not quite match the speed of that 1:34.55 effort from the state qualifier at Colgate on Feb. 26. Still, with a time of one minute, 35.95 seconds, the F-M junior earned third place, the best effort of any Section III competitor at the state meet. Claudia Francis (Benjamin Cardozo) won in 1:30.97.
As for Jillian Fanning, she also reached the podium by claiming fourth place in the 3,000-meter run in a clocking of 9:57.67. Cornwall’s Aisling Cuffe set a state record of 9:29.89 to win that event.
In the 4×800 relay, Martin and Fanning joined another medal-winning effort as they, along with Katie Sischo and Natalie Zazzara, took fifth place in 9:28.57. Shenendehowa won in 9:12.41. Sischo, on her own, got seventh place in the 1,000-meter run in 2:58.37.
Another Hornet runner, Emily McGurrin, was 19th in the 1,500-meter run (5:03.86) as Jamesville-DeWitt’s Danielle Doss cleared 8 feet in the pole vault, finishing 26th.
Moving to the boys state meet, F-M’s Mark McGurrin cracked the top 10 in the mile, taking eighth place in 4:25.03 as West Genesee’s Billy Gabriel won the state title in 4:16.91.
In the 3.200-meter run, the Hornets’ Andrew Roache made his way to 10th place in 9:32.35 as his teammate, Nick Ryan, was 15th in 9:39.16.
East Syracuse-Minoa’s Mike Coogan joined Eric Bzdick, Amos Webb and Chris Buchanan on the Section III distance medley relay team that took ninth place in 8:15.65. J-D sprinter Ira Griffin got to 10th place in the 300-meter dash in 36.36 seconds, missing the final by just three-tenths of a second.
