In between their head-to-head showdown last Wednesday and the rematch in the CNY Counties League championship meet late this week, the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse track and field teams both found success in a pair of Saturday events.
For the Warriors (who swept the Northstars for regular-season league honors), that meant going to White Plains for the 46th annual Loucks Games, taking on top competitors from across the Northeast.
Ryheim Lawes gained a victory for Liverpool in the 100-meter dash. He qualified for the final in 11.08 seconds and then improved to exactly 11 seconds in the championship race, edging out Mustafaa Dais (Hackley School), who was second in 11.04 seconds.
In the girls 400-meter hurdles, Ore Akinpelu earned another Liverpool victory, her time of 1:02.50 easily topping Newburgh’s D’Yanna McCaskill (1:03.31) and the rest of the field.
Back on the boys side, Lawes finished ninth in the 200-meter dash (22.67 seconds), while Mark Vanmarter, 12th in the 100, saved his best stuff for the long jump, where he went 21 feet 8 ¼ inches and rose to fifth place as Dais (22’6 ¼”) gained the top spot.
Connor Buck, Nick LeClair, Ben Petrella and Alex Christensen earned sixth place in the 4×800 relay in 8:04.46. Individually, Christensen was eighth in the 800-meter run in 1:54 flat as Marcellus senior Ryan Manahan won in 1:52.28. Petrella and Buck were 11th and 12th, respectively, in the 3,200-meter run.
Travis Chewning-Kulick, in the pole vault, cleared 12’6” for 10th place, while Chris Grannell was 11th in the discus, throwing it 133’5”. Joe Duffus was 16th in the shot put.
For the Liverpool girls team at White Plains, Akinpelu, teaming with Yasmeen Griffin, Catherine Rowell and Danelle Sims, finished third in the 4×400 relay in 3:59.49. Jazmine Herbert and Alexus Gersbacher joined Akinpelu and Rowell as the Warriors took seventh (50.09 seconds) in the 4×100.
Morgan Mahoney made her way to fifth place (7:23.13) in a 2,000-meter steeplechase won by West Genesee’s Laura Leff in 6:52.56, while also finishing 10th in the 3,000-meter run (11:18.72), edging out teammate Abby McNamara in 11th as McNamara added a 12th-place finish in the mile. Juliana Basla and Jillian Stagnitta were 11th and 12th, respectively, in the steeplechase.
Tammy Brodie earned 2,471 points for eighth place in the pentathlon, with Angela Kulpa, the new school-record holder in the pole vault with 10’1”, clearing 9’6” this time to finish 11th. Gersbacher was 12th in the triple jump as Basla, in 2:22 flat, was 12th in the 800.
Far away from this, C-NS’s boys team managed a second-place finish in the South Jefferson Boys Invitational, with 108 points, behind only New Hartford’s winning total of 128 points.
Joe Castaldo swept the throwing events, taking both the shot put (42’ ½”) and discus, the latter with a throw of 133’1”. Connor Osborne cleared 11 feet in the pole vault, second to South Jefferson’s Matt Mundt (11’6”), while Trayvon Wynn was third in the triple jump (35’5 ½”). Marcus Banister got third in the high jump (5’6”), with George Reader fifth.
In the mile, Anthony Lupia finished second, in 4:38.02, while Neil Gill got fourth place and Bryan Bausinger had fifth place. Gill, Lupia, Bausinger and Paul DeGennaro ended up second in the 4×800 relay in 8:51.63 to New Hartford’s 8:49.91.
Evan Russell, in the 400 hurdles, got second place in 1:01.50, just behind Oswego’s Ben Harrington (1:01.39). Colin Greenseich and Andrew Bearkland were fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 3,200. Jalen Jenkins got second (11.76 seconds) to APW’s Joe Carusone (11.68) in the 100 final, while Steve Mirizio was fourth in 11.86 seconds.
The Northstars were also second in the distance medley relay (11:36.70) and fourth in the 1,600 sprint medley, also events where New Hartford finished first, and third in the 4×100 relay in 47.17 seconds, where Indian River (46.64 seconds) won.
