For much of the winter, the Fayetteville-Manlius boys indoor track and field team hovered close to the top in various CNY Indoor Track Association meets, but could not get to the top.
All of that changed on Tuesday night, though, as the Hornets, with strong distance-running efforts and a pair of relay titles, overtook Liverpool and won the Fred Kirschenheiter Memorial Invitational at SRC Arena.
F-M finished with 87 points, while Liverpool, who had beaten F-M a week earlier in the Bob Grieve Invitational, had to settle for second place with 74 points. Solvay was third with 51 points.
Andrew Berge’ began F-M’s winning push in the 1,000-meter run, where he prevailed in two minutes, 35.64 seconds, beating West Genesee’s Nate Conroy (2:37.71) by more than two seconds as East Syracuse-Minoa’s Jesse Perrone was third in 2:41.16 and CBA’s Jack Brower (2:41.64) was fourth.
Then Berge’ went to the 600-meter run and joined Kyle Barber in a 1-2 finish, Barber prevailing in 1:25.29 and Berge’ second in 1:26.67, while another ESM runner, Jake Barker, was fourth in 1:27.96. F-M also had a sweep at the top in the 3,200-meter run. Bryce Millar won that race in 9:34.03, holding off Peter Ryan, who was second in 9:35.21.
And that pair was far from done, as Millar and Ryan went to the 4×800 relay to join Berge’ and Jon Abbott, helping the Hornets, in a time of 8:16.51, blow away the field as West Genesee was second (8:29.65) and ESM, with Barker, Perrone, Nick Schug and Jared Henry, finished fifth in 8:57.64.
Even in the sprint races, the Hornets had a big presence, especially in the 4×200 relay, where Ed Cheathen, Hamza ElHabbal, Luke Jordan and Parker Noble managed a time of 1:38.08, inches clear of Skaneateles (1:38.26), Corcoran (1:38.40) and Solvay (1:38.73) to win that race. Jordan, Cheathen, Kyle Harbour and Josh Hannan were fourth in the 4×400 relay in 3:45.93.
Barber earned fourth place in the 55-meter hurdles in 8:51 seconds, with Jamesville-DeWitt’s Rob Murphy (8.66 seconds) in fifth place and Cheathen seventh, and Barber added a sixth-place triple jump of 39 feet 3/4 inch. the Hornets’ Justin Jones and the Spartans’ Caiden Moynihan tied for fourth in the pole vault, each of them clearing 10’6″, as Murphy got seventh place, just as he did in the high jump.
Noble went 18’10 3/4″ for fourth place in the long jump, while ESM’s Tom Grayer (18’9 1/2″) edged out J-D’s Will Cote (18’9″) for the fifth spot. The Red Rams saw Rob Murphy throw the shot put 41’11” to finish fourth, as F-M’s Kyle Bronson got fifth place with a toss of 41’6 1/4″.
Hannan took fifth (39.56 seconds) and ElHabbal seventh in the 300-meter dash. Adam Hunt added a sixth-place finish in the mile in 4:44.06, beating out J-D’s Patrick Dye (4:44.92) for that last point. Abbott was seventh in the 1,000.
Two nights later, when the girls edition of the Kirschenheiter meet took place, F-M won by a much larger margin, picking up 89 points, nearly double the total of second-place Liverpool, who had 45 points.
The Hornets claimed every race from 600 to 3,000 meters. In the 600, Annika Avery prevailed in 1:38.62, with Olivia Ryan second in 1:40.50, and F-M also went 1-2 in the 1,000, where Jenna Farrell got a time of 3:05.01 and pulled away from Jessica Howe, who still got second place in 3:11.09 as J-D’s Elena Haarer was fifth.
Earlier, in the 3,000-meter run, F-M freshman Reilly Madsen, in 11:10.46, held off ESM’s Gabby Pallotta (11:12.07) to win that race as J-D’s Samantha Jaffe (11:14.72) edged out the Hornets’ Olivia Ryan for fourth place.
Another Hornets standout, Alana Pearl, needed 4:43.39 to beat the field in the 1,500-meter run, where ESM’s Natalie Marra got fifth place in 5:01.76. Pearl also factored into the 4×800, joining Avery, Howe and Ryan to help F-M win in 9:43.70 as J-D’s quartet of Haarer, Laura Wengert, Emilee Carpenter and Hannah Butler claimed second place in 10:09.94.
Christabel Ezidiegwu finished second in the long jump, going 16’1 1/2″, just ahead of ESM eighth-grader Mia Montgomery (16 feet) in third place, and Ezidiegwu had a fourth-place time of 9.31 seconds in the 55 hurdles before she cleared 5 feet in the high jump and finished fifth.
Nina Zesky won that high jump for ESM, part of the team’s season-best sixth-place performance of 26 points, as she cleared 5’2″, the only athlete to do so, one inch better than Mexico’s Tori Towndrow.
The Hornets also were third in the 4×400 as Farrell, Carly Primo, Mikayla Ruthig and Samantha Levy got a time of 4:26.70. F-M was fifth (1:53.66) in the 4×200 as Natalie Zazzara, Shauna Cheathen, Anna Perrotti and Nicole Amico took part.
J-D’s Patrece Martin gained third place in the triple jump (34′ 1/2″) and teammate Salwa ElHindi was sixth in the shot put, with Brooke DeRoberts sixth in the pole vault. CBA’s Anna Schug took fourth in the 300 sprint in 42.48 seconds.
