With Ryheim Lawes and a contingent of distance runners making the primary impact, the Liverpool boys indoor track and field team roared well clear of the field and won Wednesday night’s John Arcaro Memorial Invitational at SRC Arena.
The Warriors picked up 79 points, nearly lapping Fayetteville-Manlius, who had 49 points to edge out Jamesville-DeWitt (47 points) for the runner-up spot. That left Cicero-North Syracuse, who won the Jack Morse Holiday Relays a week earlier, settling for fourth place with 41 points.
In large part, the format helped, as now individual events handed out individual points, rather than two-man teams, except for the track relays. Also, many talented Liverpool athletes returned to action, and none had a bigger impact than Lawes, who got 28 points all by himself.
Sweeping the sprints, Lawes, in 6.59 seconds, topped Solvay’s Nick Cometti (6.75 seconds) to prevail in the 55-meter dash, where Brandon Mayfield was seventh. Then, in the 300-meter dash, Lawes posted 37.05 seconds, again with Cometti (37.66 seconds) in the second spot.
To cap it off, Lawes also took second place in the long jump, but even that was behind a teammate, Mark Vanmarter, who prevailed with a leap of 20 feet 9 1/2 inches as Lawes, with 20’2 1/2″, was right behind.
Liverpool also went 1-2 in the 3,200-meter run. Connor Buck and Dylan McCarthy, fresh off their appearance with the boys cross country Warriors at the Nike Cross Nationals in Oregon earlier this month, got to the front and stayed there, as Buck won in 9:51.42 and McCarthy was second in 9:57.90.
McCarthy also helped Alex Christensen, Jacob Rowell and Ty Brownlow finish third (8:40.81) in the 4×800 relay, where C-NS, led by Jake Dehm, Andrew Salmons, Evan Tracy and Brian Traub, were sixth in 9:11.52. The Warriors’ Nick LeClair was third in the mile in 4:35.97, while Nick Guarante was fourth in the high jump, clearing 5’6″.
Pete Girardi, who was sixth in the 300 as Lawes won, gave C-NS a victory in the 55-meter hurdles as he posted 8.29 seconds, clear of J-D’s Rob Murphy (8.64 seconds) and the field.
The Northstars did win one direct battle with Liverpool in the shot put as Joe Castaldo, with a top throw of 50’9 1/4″, topped Geoffrey Bell, who was second with 48’4″. Morgan Austen was second (40 feet 1 inch), just behind another J-D athlete, Rob Cote, who won with 40’4″.
Austen also paired with Nate Hilt, Andrew Golembiewski and Austin McDowell to get third in the 4×200 relay in 1:37.81, just behind Corcoran, who won in 1:37.37. Andrew Bearkland took fifth in the 1,000-meter run (2:51.17) as Evan Russell got sixth place (1:30.90) in the 600-meter run. Colin Greenseich was fifth in the 3,200 (10:19.05) behind Buck and McCarthy.
