By a tiny margin, the Cicero-North Syracuse indoor track and field teams missed out on a clean sweep of the season-opening Jack Morse Relays.
While the boys Northstars won its portion of the Morse meet outright on Dec. 11 at SRC Arena, the girls could only manage a tie with Fayetteville-Manlius six nights later, when the scene shifted to Colgate University’s Sanford Field House.
C-NS had 50 points, and so did F-M. Skaneateles, with 43 points, pushed both of them and settled into third place, while Jamesville-DeWitt (36 points) and Baldiwnsville (32 points) rounded out the top five. Liverpool, with 25 points, settled for a tie for sixth with West Genesee and Mexico.
Hannah Szumloz, who finished third, and Cheyanna Collins, who got fourth place, teamed up and helped C-NS win the 55-meter hurdles relay, their combined time of 19.51 seconds the only one under 20 seconds as Leah Dixon and Alexis Bittel put Liverpool (21.01 seconds) in fifth place.
Szumolz would later get second place with Julia King in the triple jump, the pair going 62 feet 1 1/4 inches on their best efforts, with J-D (62’6 1/2″) assuming the top spot.
Olivia King earned an individual victory for C-NS in the long jump, going 15’5 1/4″, edging out Mexico’s Angel Bresnahan (15′) by a quarter of an inch, as Olivia and Julia King were second (29’7 3/4″) to the Tigers (30’3″) in the team portion.
Paige Critella and Whitney Hotchkiss gave the Northstars a second-place effort in the pole vault, clearing 14’6″, the same as Westhill/Bishop Ludden, but with more misses. Olivia King and Sasha Pulaski put the Northstars in third place in the 55-meter dash in 16.05 seconds as F-M (15.83 seconds) got the top spot.
Courtney Mahan, Marie LeRoy, Sabrina Chajkowski and Rachel Wisely were fourth in the 4×400 relay in 4:38.37, just ahead of Liverpool (4:39.38) as Kennedy Moore, Kristina Moore, Danelle Sims and Hejal Patel represented the Warriors.
In the 4×800, C-NS had Jilliann Norris, Andrea Stout, Taylor Parry and Madison Gross get fifth place in 11:19.69, and that same finish held for the Northstars in the 1,600 sprint medley, where Abbey Szumloz, Laken Hibbard, Bethany Mitchell and Madison Kolakowski were fifth in 4:48.26.
Liverpool also was fourth in the distance medley relay, where Ore Akinpelu, Morgan Mahoney, Maia Henry and Abby McNamara got a time of 13:23.69. Akinpelu, Juliana Basla, Gates Hardy and Kristin Jevis were fourth (4:41.66) in the 1,600 sprint medley, Bittel, Brisa Salinas, Erin Straub and Khadijah Clarke were sixth (1:58.91) in the 4×200 relay.
The Warriors’ Nelliah Watkins and Jasmine Hall were fourth in the shot put with combined throws of 57’7″, with C-NS sixth despite Shannon Hanmer taking third among individuals with a heave of 30’4 1/2″. Amy Zurawski and Mackenzie Muolo got fourth in the high jump, each of them clearing 4’2″.
