Never mind that the temperature hovered around 40 degrees, the wind was blowing to make it feel colder and rain kept pounding down.
With every conceivable obstacle and excuse at hand, the Skaneateles girls track and field team’s quartet of distance medley relay runners still went out and set a school record in that event during last week’s Tully Friday Night Invitational.
Together, the team of Taylor Woodruff (400 meters), Madeline Adams (1,200 meters), Liz Dwyer (800 meters) and Kaitlyn Neal (1,600 meters) recorded a time of 13 minutes, 2.06 seconds, which beat runner-up Tully by more than a minute and a half.
Just as importantly, that 13:02.06 broke the school mark that Christie Bennett, Julie Dmochowski, Beatrice Walton and Rachel Hosie set five years ago, providing the major highlight of a meet that had many high finishes for Skaneateles.
That included a victory in the 4×800 relay, where Neal, Adams, Dwyer and Morel Malcolm put up a time of 10:17.98, leaving Cazenovia (10:47.33) and the rest of the field far behind. On her own, Malcolm took fifth in the 800-meter run (2:43.88), just behind teammate Jane Gaffney (2:41.25) in fourth place.
Eighth-grader Raenah Campbell provided a particular highlight for Skaneateles in the 100-meter hurdles, as she finished second in 17.58 seconds behind Pulaski star Breann Burns (16.00).
Later, in the 200-meter dash, Woodruff finished in 27.96 seconds, again a runner-up finish and again behind an established star in Cazenovia’s Ashley Winn (27.00). Julia Willcox made her way to third place in the 1,500-meter run in 5:27.15, and also tied for sixth in the high jump.
Rachel Baker threw the shot put 26 feet 6 ½ inches, ending up in fourth place after taking eighth in the discus. Keely Gregg got fifth place in the pole vault, clearing 6’6”.
Amanda Wetmore was eighth in the 100-meter dash and long jump, and also ran a leg in the 4×100 relay, where she joined Campbell, Ashley Bonocore and Katelyn Ellison for seventh place in 57.93 seconds. Anna Barrett took eighth in the 400-meter dash.
Meanwhile, the Skaneateles boys track and field team made its way to the Cicero-North Syracuse Relays, where Nate Molnar, in the shot put, finished sixth among individuals with a heave of 40’8”.
Nick Smolenski, Dan Wolfanger, James Heckler and Tommy Hagen got to fourth place in the 4×400 relay in 3:55.67. The Lakers were also 12th in the 4×100 as Nick Hook cleared 5’2” in the high jump.
Both of the Skaneateles sides would have their OHSL Liberty division openers on Wednesday when they faced Syracuse’s Institute of Technology Central.
