All through a glorious weekend at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium during the state track and field championships,, top local runners found their way to the finish line before anyone else got there.
By the time it was done, Fayetteville-Manlius senior Nick Ryan had two state titles, and Christian Brothers Academy senior Brendan Smith had a title, too. The Hornets also earned a victory in the girls 4×800 relay to provide a proper ending.
Ryan began his rampage in the 3,200-meter run on Friday night. He hung right behind Peru’s Dan Lennon for the first two laps, took the lead by the end of the third lap and gradually pulled away from there.
In a time of nine minutes, 3.81 seconds, Ryan topped Lennon by 2.55 seconds, also claiming the Division I (large school) portion by nearly 10 seconds over Carmel’s Eric Holt (9:13.51).
A day later, Ryan got his chance to duel with Liverpool’s Zavon Watkins in the mile. Through three laps, the pair were neck-and-neck, but in the final lap Ryan pulled away and won in 4:05.24, exactly two seconds better than Watkins. Only one other runner, Horseheads’ Brian Crimmins, broke 4:10 (4:09.65, to be exact).
Also on Saturday, Smith flourished in his showcase, the 3,000-meter steeplechase. It took only two laps for the CBA star to establish a comfortable lead, and he spent the next 2,000-plus meters adding to the margin, clearing hurdles and water jumps with comfortable ease.
With a time of 9:14.31, Smith easily finished ahead of the Division I champion, Plainedge’s James Sommer, who had 9:21.16. He also claimed the Division II (small school) race by more than 10 seconds as Bainbridge-Guilford-Afton’s Connor Fuller (9:24.62) was second there.
It was all capped by F-M’s dominance in the girls 4×800 relay. The quartet of seniors Heather Martin and Katie Sischo and juniors Katie Brislin and Jillian Fanning roared to a time of 9:00.28, each of them running splits faster than 2:16 as the Hornets beat runner-up Shenendehowa (9:09.46) by more than nine seconds.
Brislin, Martin and Sischo joined Natalie Zazzara as the Hornets finished eighth in the 4×400 relay in both the Division I (3:57.37) and Federation (3:59.01) sides on consecutive days.
Over in Division II, CBA’s Dametrius Brown rose to fourth place in the 100-meter dash in 11.41 seconds, not far from Tyler O’Bryant (Ellenville), who won in 11.11 seconds. Dan Predmore rose to sixth in the discus with a throw of 150 feet 3 inches.
Brown’s teammate, Kevin Frasier, was fifth in the 400-meter dash in 50.41 seconds. Frasier also teamed with Jared Sayles, Jack Brower and Nate Fornal to place 10th in the 4×400 relay in 3:31.67.
F-M saw Ryan, Connor Farrell, Langston Lightcap and Bryce Millar get eighth in the Division I 4×800 relay in 7:55.22. Christie Rutledge was fifth in the Division I 3,000-meter run in 10:09.91 also good for seventh place overall.
As Hannah Smith took 11th in the 800-meter run (2:19.77) and Alana Pearl was eighth in the Division I part of the 1,500-meter run in 4:47.56, East Syracuse-Minoa’s Nina Zesky got a tie for sixth in the high jump, clearing 5 feet 1 inches. Zesky’s teammate, Amanda Wall, went 17′ 5 1/4″ for ninth place in the long jump.
