Dwarfing all the other developments in Friday’s weather-shortened Oneida Invitational, Fayetteville-Manlius boys track and field senior Nick Ryan broke the Section III record on his way to a victory in the 3,200-meter run.
Right from the start, Ryan set a torrid pace, covering the first mile in 4:27.7. His final 800 meters (2:10.3) proved faster than his first 800 (2:12.8), a superb pace that led to a special time.
In eight minutes, 55.93 seconds, Ryan destroyed the mark held by another F-M runner, Tommy Gruenewald, who went as past as 8:58.98 in a two-mile event. He also was part of a 1-2 finish in the race as Bryce Millar, in 9:38.06, finished a distant second.
This was all part of an F-M sweep of the Oneida meet. Even with relay races cut out by rain and lightning, the Hornets still got 103 points on the girls side and 80 points on the boys side, with Rome Free Academy second in both events and Jamesville-DeWitt (52 points) third in the girls meet.
To augment Ryan’s record race, Andrew Berge won the mile in 4:34.76, with Adam Hunt (4:40.41) in third place. Connor Farrell was the only 800-meter run to break two minutes, winning that event in 1:59.68, while Charlie Beeler took the 400-meter dash in 50.60 seconds and Kyle Barber won the 400-meter hurdles in 57.48 seconds.
F-M’s success bled into field events, too, as Terius Wheatley, clearing 6 feet, won the high jump because he had fewer misses than Old Forge’s Ethan Kress. Zhengyue Zhu was fourth in the triple jump (40’4”) as Ed Cheatham, fifth in the 400 hurdles (1:00.96), was seventh in the 110 high hurdles.
J-D only had 20 points in the boys event, eight of them from Zach Liebmann clearing 13 feet in the pole vault to finish second behind Camden’s Aaron Davis, who went 13’9 ¼”. David Elmore was fifth in the discus (130’7”) as Brian Roth took sixth in the shot put.
Robert Murphy, in 16.83 seconds, took third place in the 110 high hurdles. Will Hohreiter was sixth in the 3,200 in the wake of Ryan’s record run. Taumeras Howard made the 100-meter final, only to get a false start. Though the pentathlon got in just four of five events, Nate Sturgeon was third with 2,113 points, ahead of F-M’s Kyle Harbour (2,065 points) in fourth.
Moving to the girls side, they did get the full pentathlon done, and F-M’s Anna Castro, with a big lead heading into the 800-meter finale, held on there to beat Waterville’s Alicia Barnes by two points, 2,187 to Barnes’ 2,185. J-D’s Mackenzie Kallquist was fourth.
the Hornets went 1-2 in the 1,500 and 3,000-meter events, as Alana Pearl won the 1,500 in 4:40.76, with Jenna Farrell second (4:50.03), and Katie Brislin (10:18.41) beat Mary Barger (10:24 flat) in the 3,000. Savannah Pidkaminy joined in when she cleared 8’6” in the pole vault with fewer misses than three other competitors to win that event.
Christabel Ezidiegwu was a close second (16.74 seconds) to RFA’s Mariah Johnson (16.67 seconds) in the 100 hurdles, with Caitlin Ferro sixth, and Ezidiegwu cleared 4’10” for a second-place finish in the high jump, also taking fifth in the triple jump.
Olivia Ryan got to second place in the 400 sprint in 1:00.69, with Christine Lavoie sixth. Ferro also was fifth in the 400 hurdles, while Pidkaminy was fourth (94’10”) in the discus.
J-D won twice, including a 1-2 sweep in the 800 where Rachel Fairbanks won in 2:20.50 and Emilee Carpenter was second in 2:23.44, ahead of the Hornets’ Michelle Duffy in third (2:25.24) and Avery in fifth place. In the triple jump,
Patrece Martin prevailed, her leap of 34’5” just enough to hold off Remsen’s Alicia Atwell-Chwazik (34’3 ¾”) and the field.
The Red Rams’ Ally Fox made her way to second in the 100-meter dash in 12.90 seconds and added a third (26.69 seconds) in the 200 ahead of F-M’s Natalie Zazzara (27.46 seconds) in fourth. Allison Semmel got sixth in the 400 hurdles as Brooke DeRoberts (94 feet) and Tangela Hightower (92’4”) was fifth and sixth, respectively, in the discus.
