Baldwinsville’s boys indoor track and field team had a strong showing in Wednesday night’s CNY Counties League National division championship meet at SRC Arena – but it wasn’t quite enough to get to the top.
The Bees, without the services of Shay Sargeant, finished with 102 points, easing past Liverpool (90.5 points) for second place, but still trailing Cicero-North Syracuse, who earned the victory with 162.5 points.
No one topped Alec Peinkofer in the 3,200-meter run, though. The B’ville senior covered the two miles in nine minutes, 48.99 seconds, more than six seconds ahead of Liverpool’s Connor Buck (9:55.27) at the line.
That commenced the Bees’ domination of the distance races, which included a 1-2 finish in the mile. Josh Perez earned the victory in 4:26.59, pulling away from Peinkofer, who was second in 4:32.17.
B’ville also prevailed in the 4×400 relay, where the quartet of Andy Fleming, Dan Walker, Nate Wicks and Brenna LaQue got a time of 3:41.12, with C-NS (3:46.04) nearly five seconds behind.
Fleming didn’t stop there, either, going to the 600-meter run and, in 1:27.71, holding off West Genesee’s Jack Erhard (1:28.26) to finish in front. LaQue (1:33.90) took fifth place. Also, Fleming teamed with Jack Martin, Chris Twichell and Anthony Caselle as B’ville ran to third place in the 4×800 relay in 8:44.62.
The Bees also ruled the pole vault, where Logan Maar took the league title by clearing 11 feet, while teammate Drew Molinet (10’6”) claimed third place. It helped that the favorite, Liverpool’s Travis Chewning-Kulick, was unable to clear a heigh.
Wicks got to third (37.95 seconds) in the 300-meter dash as Greg Lefancheck was third in the 55-meter hurdles in 9.39 seconds. Martin took fourth place in the 1,000-meter run in 2:47.71, while Brent Grippe was fifth in the 55-meter dash in 7.16 seconds.
Harrison Warner earned fourth place in the high jump, topping 5’4”.Sam Smith had a fourth-place triple jump of 36’ 2 ¼”. Kirk Anderson earned fifth place in the shot put, heaving it 40’10 ½”.
B’ville will find itself back at SRC Arena again this Wednesday, competing in the Section III Class AA championship meet as the Bees, along with C-NS, try to topple defending champion Fayetteville-Manlius.
