Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool’s boys indoor track and field teams were nearly identical in their results during Wednesday’s Fred Kirschenheiter Memorial Invitational at SRC Arena.
But it was the Northstars that would prevail, team-wise, with 41 points, sliding into second place, two more than the Warriors in fourth place (39 points), with Corcoran (40 points) in between as the Cougars took third, all of them behind Fayetteville-Manlius (76 points), who won again.
Despite finishing behind C-NS, Liverpool earned the only individual title, in the pole vault, where Travis Chewning-Kulick, by clearing 11 feet 9 inches held off Jamesville-DeWitt’s Zach Liebmann (11’6”) and prevailed.
C-NS’s Anthony Lupia had a second-place time of 4:32.81 in the mile, just behind F-M’s Colin Fitzgibbons (4:32.11) as Liverpool’s Connor Buck (4:42.08) was fifth.
In the shot put, Liverpool’s Geoffrey Bell finished second with a throw of 47’4”, which only Westhill/Bishop Ludden star Corey Wilkinson (48’11 ¼”) could top as the Northstars’ Joe Castaldo (42’8 ¾”) finished fifth.
Buck, teaming with Dylan McCarthy, Alex Christensen and Nick LeClair, contended in the 4×800 relay, getting to second place in 8:40.12, though F-M (8:22.47) pulled away for that title.
Morgan Austen earned 14 points by himself for the Northstars. In the triple jump, Austen went 40’8”, which got him in second place behind Central Square’s Dan Fehrman (41’6 ¾”). Also, Austen moved up to third place in the 55-meter hurdles in 8.25 seconds.
C-NS’s 4×400 relay quartet of Avery Yarn, Mark Broughton, Nick Erwin and Nathan Hilt were third in 3:40.46 as Liverpool took eighth place. Broughton, on his own, took fourth (6.84 seconds) in the 55-meter dash, with Hilt getting fourth place in the 300-meter dash in 39.01 seconds.
Liverpool would fare better in the 3,200-meter run, where McCarthy (10:26.93) and Jake Rowell (10:34.81) were third and fourth, respectively, ahead of the Northstars’ Colin Greenseich (10:37.48) in fifth and Matt Crough (10:38.74) in sixth.
When it came to the girls Kirschenheiter meet, Liverpool topped C-NS in a big way, and with 46 points, the Warriors slid into second place behind F-M (81 points) as the Northstars, with 16 points, tied for 10th place.
Liverpool’s lone win came in the 4×200 relay, where Ore Akinpelu, Jazmine Herbert, Danielle Sims and Catherine Rowell crushed the field with a time of 1:49.12, more than five seconds ahead of runner-up Corcoran (1:54.23).
Individually, Akinpelu gained third place in the 600 in 1:42.95, while Herbert needed 7.72 seconds to finish third in the 55 sprint. Rowell had a sixth-place long jump of 31’4”. Morgan Mahoney was fourth in the 3,000-meter run in 10:35.81, just ahead of C-NS’s Nicole Watterud (10:47.41) in fifth.
Yasmeen Griffin, Dana Brown, Jessica Turner and Kristen Jevis were third in the 4×400 relay in 4:29.43. Mahoney, Abby McNamara, Juliana Basla (who was seventh in the 1,500-meter run) and Jillian Stagnitta got to fourth place in the 4×800 in 10:18.11.
Moving to the pole vault, Shae Shenandoah cleared 8 feet, also earning third place as Megan Molnar (Skaneateles) won with 8’6”. C-NS’s Whitney Hotchkiss tied for fifth as the Warriors’ Nelliah Watkins earned sixth place in the shot put.
Half of the Northstars’ points came from the long jump, where Javielle Fanizzi went 16’2 ½”, which was second to Jamesville-DeWitt’s Sierra Vasiliou (17’ ¾”). Fanizzi’s teammate, Hannah Szumloz, earned fourth place in the 55 hurdles in 9.46 seconds, ahead of Liverpool’s Tammy Brodie (9.81 seconds) in fifth place.
Everyone now could look ahead to the CNY Counties League championship meets, with the boys competing Thursday and the girls on Friday at SRC Arena.
