Both of Baldwinsville’s indoor track and field teams displayed solid improvement when they competed in last week’s Fred Kirschenheiter Memorial Invitational at SRC Arena.
In the boys meet on Tuesday night, the Bees picked up 35 points to finish sixth, just behind Cicero-North Syracuse and West Genesee, who tied for fourth with 38 points. Fayetteville-Manlius (87 points) beat Liverpool (74 points) for the top spot.
B’ville’s victory came in the 4×400 relay. Josh Perez, Jeff Mahar, Dan Walker and Brian Mahar teamed up as the Bees, with a time of three minutes, 35.07 seconds, easily outdistanced runner-up C-NS (3:39.06) and the rest of the field. Perez later helped Brennan LaQue, Jack Martin and Alden Kellner finish fourth (8:43.22) in the 4×800 relay.
Jeff Mahar, in 37.93 seconds, nearly won the 300-meter dash, but Corcoran’s Davon Evans (37.92 seconds) beat him by one-hundredth of a second.
Sam Mahar had his own third-place finish in the 55-meter dash in 6.84 seconds, just beaten out by Fowler’s Delee Williams (6.79 seconds) and Solvay’s Nick Cometti (6.83 seconds). Evan Donhauser contended in the 55-meter hurdles and got to third place, in 8.45 seconds, as C-NS’s Morgan Austen (7.96 seconds) won it. LaQue got sixth place in the 600-meter run in 1:29.85.
Ryan Delola got 10th place in the 3,200-meter run in 10:44.88, just ahead of Paul Moore (10:50.39) in 11th place. Perez and Dennis Keegan were 13th and 14th, respectively, in the mile, while Kellmer was 14th in the 1,000-meter run and Brian Mahar was 14th in the 55 sprint. Tait Rundberg took 14th place in the triple jump and Griffin Lynch was 15th in the pole vault.
When the B’ville girls indoor track team gathered at SRC Arena for its part of the Kirschenheiter meet two nights later, it picked up 27.5 points and slid into fifth place, though far from the winning total of 89.5 points that F-M posted.
Just as the boys did, the girls Bees picked up a relay title. But this one came in the 4×200, where Hailey Couchman, Elise Seifritz, Marissa Lathrop and Cierra Allen posted 1:50.08 to beat Cazenovia (1:52.05), who was in its first CNY Indoor Track Association meet after dominating Mohawk Valley ITA meets all winter.
Emily Soeder tied for fourth in the high jump, clearing exactly 5 feet, two inches behind East Syracuse-Minoa’s Nina Zesky, as she also finished 14th in the triple jump. Brittany LaRock, clearing 7’6”, shared fourth place in the pole vault.
Kelley Hull, in a clocking of 3:15.37, earned fourth place in the 1,000, just as Lathrop took fourth place (1:43.51) in the 600 and Allen, in 42.60 seconds, gained fifth place in the 300 sprint. Lathrop, Hull, Mia Bolton and Katie Wicks were eighth (10:35.75) in the 4×800.
Couchman also finished fourth in the long jump, going 15’11 ½”, with Carlie McNamara ninth (29’2 ½”) in the shot put. Liz Wisely, in exactly 10 seconds got 10th place in the 55-meter hurdles as Bolton took 15th in the 1,500-meter run in 5:20.02 and Nadine Dickter was 17th at 3,000 meters and Randi Bort took 18th in the 55 sprint.
