Regardless of the format or venue, the Fayetteville-Manlius indoor track and field teams continue to gain a foothold ahead of any possible challengers.
Such was the case again for the boys Hornets in last Tuesday’s Bob Grieve Memorial Invitational at SRC Arena, where the Hornets picked up 69 points to hold off Rome Free Academy (51 points) and the rest of a 26-team field, including Jamesville-DeWitt, who was seventh with 25.2 points.
Most of those points were, again, piled up in distance events. F-M went 1-2 in the mile, where Connor Farrell prevailed in four minutes, 34.40 seconds and Andrew Berger, in 4:37.58, made his way to the runner-up spot.
It was nearly the same in the 3,200-meter run, where Adam Hunt, in a time of 10:00.67, beat the field and Riley Hughes was third in 10:11.17 and CBA’s David Carey (10:21.15) was fifth. Colin Fitzgibbons was a close second (1:28.85) to RFA’s Erik Winberg (1:28.45) in the 600-meter run, where East Syracuse-Minoa’s Joe Coogan (1:30.17) was fifth.
Nick Ryan took on a smaller role, but in the distance medley relay he teamed with Fitzgibbons, Bryce Millar and Charlie Beeler to post a time of 10:33.34 and win a lively duel with Baldwinsville (10:36.60) as they pulled away from the field.
Beeler, on his own, was second (37.99 seconds) to RFA’s Josh Reed (37.19 seconds) in the 300-meter dash. Ryan, Jake Pulver, Josh Druger and Eli Pinner were fifth (3:54.04) in the 1,600 sprint medley relay and David Benman took sixth in the 1,000-meter run in 2:48.11.
In field events, F-M’s Zhengyue Zhu rose to fourth in the triple jump, going 39 feet 2 ¼ inches, and Zhu added a fifth in the long jump (19 feet 6 ¾ inches) as teammate Kyle Barber was seventh in the triple jump after a seventh in the 55-meter hurdles.
Zach Liebmann provided J-D with a victory in the pole vault. As the only competitor to clear 13 feet, Liebmann outlasted the trio of Travis Chewning-Kulick (Liverpool), Noah Paccia (Tully) and Carson Schwab (Skaneateles), who could only clear 11’6”.
The Red Rams also saw Taumeras Howard tie for third in the high jump, clearing 5’10”, and take fourth in the 55-meter dash in 6.79 seconds, while Nate Sturgeon needed 38.78 seconds for fourth place in the 300 and added a fifth (8.62 seconds) in the 55 hurdles. Billy Hohreiter got to fifth (4:41.84) in the mile behind Farrell and Berger. Brian Roth was eighth in the shot put.
A night later, F-M’s girls went out and dominated its portion of the Grieve meet, winning with 95 points. J-D, with 45 points, got third place behind Liverpool (50 points) and ESM, with a pair of victories, rose to eighth place with 26 points.
Mary Barger (10:32.54) and Jenna Farrell (10:41.40) went 1-2 for the Hornets in the 3,000-meter run. Michelle Duffy prevailed in the 1,500-meter run in 4:50.19, beating out J-D’s Rachel Fairbanks (4:52.65) in the runner-up spot. CBA’s Maire-Kate McGlynn was fifth.
Alana Pearl (3:03.06) and Annika Avery (3:07.01) were second and third, respectively, in the 1,000, but Avery joined Jillian Fanning, Katie Brislin and Olivia Ryan to win the distance medley in 12:34.21. This came before Pearl, Barger, Duffy and Marri Ryu won the 4×400 relay in 4:17.26.
F-M also saw Ryan get to second place (44.31 seconds) in the 300 sprint, while Christabel Ezidiegwu earned third place in the 55 hurdles (9:46 seconds) for F-M as the Rams’ Taylor-Rae Danforth (9.79 seconds) took sixth place.
But it was ESM’s Juiliette Miller earning the victory in the 600, getting to a top time of 1:44.83 to edge out Liverpool’s Ore Akinpelu (1:45.37) as F-M saw Christine Lavoie take fourth and Mia Blatt finish fifth. The Spartans’ Natalie Marra was third in the 3,000 (10:45.36) behind Barger and Farrell.
Nina Zesky gave the Spartans another victory in the long jump, the only competitor to clear 5’1”, an inch better than B’ville’s Emily Soeder as F-M’s Anna Castro (4’9”) was fifth.
Sierra Vasiliou won the long jump for J-D, going 16’10 ¼”, more than eight inches ahead of Nottingham’s Myadah Kaila (16’2”). Following that up, Vasiliou’s teammate, Patrece Martin, prevailed in the triple jump, going 34’2 ½”, nearly a foot ahead of Liverpool’s Alexus Gersbacher.
Ally Fox gave the Rams a second-place time of 7.62 seconds in the 55 sprint, just behind Ke’Arra Allen (Nottingham), who won in 7.57 seconds. Danforth earned fourth place in the pole vault, clearing 7’6” as ESM’s Alexis Bennik tied for seventh.
