Both the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool track and field teams made all-out efforts to earn the Section III Class AA championship last Tuesday at Bragman Stadium.
Yet neither could catch Fayetteville-Manlius. Buoyed by its deep pool of distance runners that dominated every event from 400 meters upward, the Hornets, with 152 points, beat the Northstars, who were second with 106 points, and the Warriors, who were third with 77 points.
The relays proved important, too. Liverpool won the 4×100, where Hannah Anthes, Connie Torres, Armani Moore and Shanice Leach posted a time of 51.08 seconds, more than a second ahead of runner-up Rome Free Academy as CNS took sixth.
Marissa Colburn, Katie Laris, Kaitlin Donahue and Nicole Campagna were second in the 4×800 relay in 10:09.95, with Liverpool third (10:13.95) and both behind F-M, who won in 9:25.08. Also, the Warriors were fourth (4:17.66) and Northstats fifth (4:19.93) in the 4×400 relay as, again, the Hornets prevailed.
Move to the longer races, and only Colburn got close to the top, claiming second in the 2,000-meter steeplechase in 7:42.79 as F-M’s Alana Pearl won in 7:35.50. The Warriors’ Kyla Bills finished fifth and Laris settled into sixth place.
In the 1,500-meter run Nicole Watterud was fifth (4:56.67) and Jackie Halstead sixth (4:58.81), F-M grabbing the top three spots. The Hornets did that, too, in the 800-meter run, where Laris was fifth and Campagna sixth. And in the 3,000-meter run, F-M went 1-2 ahead of Halstead in fourth place (10:51.15) and Waterrud in fifth.
Mariah Thomson nearly swept the throwing events for CNS. She won the discus, heaving it 93 feet 8 inches and beating, among others, Liverpool’s Mary Reed (85 feet 7 inches), who was third. Also, Thomson gave the Northstars a second-place shot put toss of 36 feet 7 1/2 inches, half an inch behind Auburn’s Corrine Taylor.
CNS also got a win in the pole vault, where Jessica Wheeler cleared 9 feet as, for Liverpool, Shae Shenandoah was third (8 feet 6 inches) and Angela Kulpa (8 feet) was fourth.
Katie Osborne was second in the 100-meter hurdles final in 15.04 seconds, just behind Utica Proctor star Kierra Arthur (14.96), who would be the biggest individual star in the meet as she also took the long jump (17 feet 6 inches), triple jump (36 feet 6 3/4 inches) and 400-meter hurdles (1:05.80).
Wheeler (16.59 seconds) was third in the 100 hurdles and Liverpool’s Megan Earle got fifth in 16.77 seconds. In
the long jump, Osborne went 17 feet for second place as Leach (16 feet 9 3/4 inches) and Moore (16 feet 6 3/4 inches) were third and fourth, respectively. Leach improved to second in the triple jump, going 35 feet 6 3/4 inches, with Osborne fourth and Moore in fifth place.
CNS saw Justine Selinger take third (2,038 points) and Hannah Szumloz get fourth (1,992 points) in the pentathlon, where Liverpool’s Tammy Brodie was fifth. In the high jump, Liverpool’s Meagan Turner cleared 5 feet and finish third, ahead of Osborne in fifth.
