Sheer numbers of talented runners, especially in the distance events, proved the secret to Fayetteville-Manlius capturing both Section III Class AA championships at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium.
The girls Hornets went first last Tuesday afternoon and earned 162 points, enough to fend off the host C-NS Northstars, who were second with 135 points. No one else reached triple figures as Baldwinsville (70 points) slid into third place.
In a trio of distance-running events, F-M went 1-2-3 at the top. It began in the 3,000-meter run, where Christie Rutledge won in nine minutes, 58.34 seconds, with Jillian Fanning second (10:04.13) second and Michelle Duffy (10:11.33) in third.
Moving to the 800-meter run, Katie Brislin, in 2:13.80, pulled away from Hannah Smith (2:19.78) and Katie Sischo (2:19.96) amid a top-three sweep. Fanning would go to the top in the 1,500-meter run as she edged Sischo, 4:42.35 to 4:42.36, with Alana Pearl (4:44.99) behind them in third place.
That spread to the relays, too, as Brislin joined Heather Martin, Natalie Zazzara and Olivia Ryan to shatter the four-minute mark and win the 4×400 relay in 3:56.52, leaving Liverpool (4:00.44) in second. It was more lopsided in the 4×800, where Brislin, Smith, Annika Avery and Emily McGurrin finished in 9:34.84, nearly 24 seconds ahead of C-NS (9:58.52) in the runner-up spot.
Martin had her own victory in the 400-meter dash, where in 57.67 seconds she topped a field that included teammate Olivia Ryan, who was second in 1:00.57. In the 4×100 relay, Martin, Zazzara, Sarah Olick-Sutphen and Jordan Noble took third in 50.77 seconds.
Alana Pearl contributed more points when she got to second in the 2,000-meter steeplechase in 7:23.59, with Maggie Malone third (7:30.14) and Mary Barger (7:35.71) in fourth place. Anna Castro, with 2,141 points, earned fourth place in the pentathlon.
Valuable points came from field events, too. Christabel Ezidiegwu landed in second place in the triple jump, going 35 feet 3 3/4 inches as Utica Proctor’s Kierra Arthur (37′ 6 3/4″) prevailed.
Ezidiegwu moved to the high jump and cleared 4’10” for fifth place. Savannah Pidkaminy rose to fifth in the discus with a heave of 85’9″ and also took sixth in the pole vault, clearing 7’6″.
Just 24 hours later, in the boys Class AA championship meet, F-M won again. By earning 99 points, the Hornets had enough to slide past Liverpool (89 points) and C-NS (81 points) to land in the top spot, and it did so without top sprinter Austin Perez, who sat out the meet due to injury.
Nick Ryan led the way. Ryan shattered his own personal mark in the mile, going to the lead early and pulling further away until he crossed the line in 4:09.61, more than 10 seconds ahead of Liverpool star Zavon Watkins. Bryce Millar was third (4:21.29) and Ben Thomas (4:28.75) was fourth.
Later, in the 3,200-meter run, Ryan led a top-four sweep, cruising to first place in 9:37.45, just ahead of Matt Deyo in second (9:42.21), while Millar (9:45.27) and Thomas (10:05.64) again claimed the third and fourth spots.
F-M also won a pair of relays as Ryan, teaming with Millar, Langston Lightcap and Connor Farrell, claimed the 4×800 in 8:08.02, beating Baldwinsville by 2.39 seconds, while in the 4×400 Lightcap, joined by Said Shakuri, Charlie Beeler and Aaron Blitz, again held off B’ville, 3:28.55 to 3:29.49.
Colin Fitzgibbons, in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, claimed third place in 10:15.02, where Riley Hughes was sixth. Kyle Harbour worked his way to third place in the pentathlon with 2,389 points.
Lightcap finished third in the 800 in 1:59.18, with Farrell fifth in 2:01.37. Lightcap also took fourth in the 400 sprint in 51.58 seconds, edging Beeler (51.60 seconds), who finished fifth. Zhengyue Zhu had a fifth-place triple jump of 41’2” and Kyle Barber was fifth (16.95 seconds) in the 110 hurdles.
F-M’s runners can return to Bragman Stadium three more times, for the May 31 state qualifier and, for those that advance, the June 8-9 state championships.
