Bolstered by Isaiah Lee’s victory in the triple jump, plus other fine efforts in field events, the Solvay boys indoor track and field team soared up to a season-best third-place showing in Tuesday night’s Fred Kirschenheiter Memorial Invitational at SRC Arena.
The Bearcats picked up 51 points, a number only topped by Fayetteville-Manlius (87 points) and Liverpool (74 points), who have stood at or near the top of the standings in meets all winter long. West Genesee, with 38 points, tied Cicero-North Syracuse for fourth, with Marcellus getting 11th place as it gained 11 points.
Isaiah Lee’s title in the triple jump involved a leap of 40 feet 11 ¾ inches, which was just enough to fend off Liverpool’s Mark Vanmarter (40’11”) by three-quarters of an inch.
That followed a long jump where Garrett Lee gave Solvay a second-place finish, his top leap of 19’3 ¼” topping everyone in the field except Vanmarter, who won with 20’8”.
Also, Josh Marotti cleared 12 feet in the shot put, only finishing second because Phoenix’s Andy Padula had fewer misses as Mike Abbott gave Marcellus a third-place finish, clearing 10’6”. Abbott’s teammate, Tom Dailey, finished eighth.
Nick Cometti nearly won the 55-meter dash, a close race where, in 6.83 seconds, Cometti fit in right behind Fowler’s Delee Williams, who gained first place in 6.79 seconds. It was different in the 300-meter dash, where Cometti finished 11th. Adding to the total, Solvay’s Frank Pucello finished third in the shot put, heaving it 42’7 ½”.
Marotti added a sixth (8.87 seconds) in the 55-meter hurdles, while Isaiah Lee, joining Cometti, Eric Goodrich and Owen Ryan, earned fourth place in the 4×200 relay in 1:38.73, less than a second behind F-M’s winning time of 1:38.08. Goodrich, on his own, was third in the 600-meter run in 1:27.96, where Jordan-Elbridge’s Dylan Whittico (1:28.74) earned fifth place.
As for West Genesee, Nate Conroy made his way to second place in the 1,000-meter run in 2:37.61, topped by F-M’s Andrew Berge’, who won in 2:35.64. Conroy, Logan McAnulty, Kal Strickland and Sean Beney needed 8:29.65 to finish second to F-M (8:16.51) in the 4×800.
WG also saw David Leff (4:39.09) and Logan McAnulty (4:40.97) get third and fourth place, respectively, in the mile. In the 4×400 relay, Beney, Jack Erhard, Hunter Buza and Ejay Harrell rose to third place, getting a time of 3:44.61.
Marcellus got its best finish in the high jump, where Francis Townsend managed to clear 5’8” with fewer misses than three other competitors, including Harrell, to get second place behind Corcoran’s Charles Stokes, who won with 6 feet. J-E’s Nathan Hollis was sixth, clearing 5’6”.
Also for the Eagles, Jack Gugel went 10:17.57 in the 3,200-meter run and gained sixth place. Westhill/Ludden’s Anthony Peciorello was seventh in the shot put, just missing the points, while Marcellus’ Noah Townsend was 10th in the 55 hurdles.
When the girls Kirschenheiter meet took place on Thursday night, West Genesee, even without Laura Leff in the lineup, finished third, earning 40 points, just behind runner-up Liverpool (45 points), though far from the winning total of 89.5 points that F-M posted.
Twice, the Wildcats won field events. Abby Uczen again prevailed for the Wildcats in the pole vault, the only one to clear 9 feet 6 inches as no one else could top 8 feet as Westhill/Ludden’s Glenna Kehelan and Caroline Black tied for seventh place.
Meanwhile, in the triple jump, Brianna Richardson went 34’10”, easily besting the field as Corcoran’s Taniya Williams (34’ ¾”) finished second. And this followed a solid showing in the 55 hurdles as Richardson finished third in 9.16 seconds, and a fifth-place long jump of 15’9 ½”.
For Westhill/Ludden, Bella Sterly got second place in the shot put, her throw of 33 feet topped only by C-NS’s Destiny Monica, who won with 33’6”.
Annibel Coolican, Caroline Coates, Genny Corcoran and Erin Christensen finished fourth (10:20.30) in the 4×800 relay as WG (10:34.58) settled for sixth place. Coolican and Coates joined Tatiana Monds and Shelby Stack to take fourth (4:27.52), again ahead of WG (4:29.84), in the 4×400.
J-E’s Abby Gugel accounted for most of her team’s points, making it to third place in the 600 in 1:43.41 as WG’s Maria Matkoski (1:45.43) gained sixth place. The Eagles’ Julie Hines was sixth in both the 55 (7.83 seconds) and 300 (42.90 seconds) sprints.
WG eighth-grader Karly Benson made her way to third place in the 1,500-meter run in 4:59.15. Benson’s classmate, Rachel Whiting, was sixth in the 3,000-meter run in 11:35.75, just ahead of J-E’s Mary Elizabeth Dristle in eighth place, with another Wildcat, Elise Dunshee, sixth (3:15.59) in the 1,000.
Leff didn’t run here because she was getting ready for her appearance in Saturday’s New Balance Games at the Armory in New York City, where she prevailed in the mile in a time of 5:00.49, edging past Courtney Thompson (St. John Vianney), who was second in 5:01.41.
As a result, Leff qualified for the prestigious Millrose Games, which take place Feb. 15, also at the Armory.
