Just a few miles down the road from where they clashed a week earlier, the Skaneateles and Cazenovia girls track and field teams dueled again, only this time with the company of eight other sides as part of Monday’s Onondaga High School League Liberty division championship meet at Chittenango High School.
And unlike that head-to-head encounter where Cazenovia prevailed, this time it was Skaneateles finishing on top, earning 136 points to the 114 points gained by those other Lakers. Marcellus, with 88 points, finished third.
Skaneateles cleaned up in sprints, helped by the fact that Cazenovia sprint star Ashley Winn did not finish the 100-meter final and missed the rest of the meet with a pulled hamstring. Amanda Wetmore won that race in 13.41 seconds as Corrine LaFrance (13.63 seconds) finished fourth.
Taylor Woodruff won the 400-meter dash in 1:00.62, with teammate Olivia Gage (1:06.23) in fourth. Then, in the 200-meter dash final, Woodruff, without Winn to worry about, won in 27.41 seconds, Katelyn Ellison (28.33 seconds) taking fifth.
Eighth-grader Raenah Campbell needed 1:10.86 to prevail in the 400-meter hurdles, just ahead of Willcox (1:12.32) in third place, with Campbell also second in the 100-meter hurdles in 16.89 seconds, edged out by Cazenovia’s Ashley Kent (16.84 seconds).
They all worked together in the 4×100 relay, where Wetmore, Woodruff, Ellison and Laurel Parker, in 53 seconds flat, pulled away from Cazenovia (54.46 seconds) and the field. The Lakers were also fourth (4:30.25) in the 4×400 relay.
Another key to the outcome was the way Skaneateles soared to the top in distance races, starting with the 4×800 relay, where Madeline Adams, Liz Dwyer, Kaitlyn Neal and Julia Willcox prevailed in nine minutes, 57.65 seconds, with Westhill/Bishop Ludden (10:02.40) in second.
Adams, on her own, won the 3,000-meter run in 11:04.34, while Dwyer (11:23.44) was third. Neal got second place, in 5:02.82, to Marcellus’ Rachel Garn (5:00.80) in the 1,500-meter run as Morel Malcolm was second in the 2,000-meter steeplechase in 8:07.69.
Mary Buck, with 1,836 points, took third place in the pentathlon. Woodruff was fourth in the long jump, going 14 feet 5 3/4 inches, while Keely Gregg was fourth in the pole vault, clearing 7 feet, and Rachel Baker got fifth (28′ 3/4″) in the shot put. Willcox took seventh in the high jump.
As that was going on, the Skaneateles boys track team was sixth out of 10 entrants in its OHSL Liberty meet, with 35 points, as Westhill/Ludden soared to the top with 158 points.
The Lakers did best in relays, including the 4×400, where the quartet of Patrick Biver, Matt Clymer, Dan Wolfanger and Ethan Johanns claimed a classic, edging Jordan-Elbridge at the wire by just 0.02 seconds, 3:38.41 to the Eagles’ 3:38.43.
Skaneateles also was second in the 4×100 as Wolfanger, Jeff Kringer, Nick Smolenski and Max Dwyer finished in 47.19 seconds, with Westhill/Ludden (45.18 seconds) prevailing. Kringer, on his own, took fifth (55.51 seconds) in the 400 sprint, while Cooper Watt was sixth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
On an individual basis, Carson Schwab, in the pole vault, cleared 11 feet, second to Solvay’s Josh Marotti, who topped 11’6″ to win. Biver, Clymer, Johanns and Matt Clymer made their way to third place in the 4×800 relay in 8:37.12.
Biver took eighth place in the triple jump, with Nate Molnar eighth in the shot put. James Hackler was eighth in the 800, while Max Messie took eighth place in the 400 hurdles and Chris Niehbur was 10th in the mile. Ari Hristodoulou got eighth place in the long jump and Eli Goodell tied for eighth in the high jump.
