For the most part, the Cicero-North Syracuse girls indoor track and field team lagged behind rival Liverpool whenever the two met up during the winter.
However, in Thursday night’s CNY Counties League National division championships at SRC Arena, the Northstars made its way to second place, with 110 points, as the Warriors finished third with 75 points, each of them trailing Fayetteville-Manlius, who won again with 150 points.
Winning three times in field events, C-NS got a sweep from Javielle Fanizzi in the jumping events. That included a 1-2 finish in the long jump where Fanizzi, going 16 feet 5 ½ inches, prevailed as Olivia King went 15’6 ½” to gain second place.
Then, in the triple jump, Fanizzi 35 feet 1 inch to knock off West Genesee’s Brianna Richardson (34’9”) as Hannah Szumloz went 32’3 ½” to finish fourth.
Then, in the high jump, Nicole Herringshaw set a season mark by clearing 5’3”, which proved enough to edge Baldwinsville’s Emily Soeder (5’2”) for the top spot. Brittany House added a fifth-place clearance of 4’8”.
Also for the Northstars, Whitney Hotchkiss tied for second in the pole vault, clearing 7’6”, with the Warriors’ Sarah Pflanz in sixth place. In the shot put, Destiny Monica was third with a throw of 32’ ½”, behind Liverpool’s Nelliah Watkins (32’4 ¼”) in second place, but ahead of Watkins’ teammate, JeNiece Gallishaw, who was fifth as C-NS’s Shannon Hanmer was sixth.
C-NS also had Szumloz finish third in the 55-meter hurdles in 9.35 seconds, with Chayanna Collins fourth in 9.55 seconds. Sasha Pulaski, Kaitlyn Anderson, Hannah Nickels and Taylor McLaughlin finishe third in the 4×200 relay in 1:54.24, ahead of Liverpool (1:55.45) in fourth place.
Liverpool’s Ore Akinpelu still won twice. In 7.59 seconds, Akinpelu held off C-NS teammates Sasha Pulaski (7.68 seconds) and Fanizzi (7.73 seconds) in the 55-meter dash. Then, in the 300-meter dash, Akinpelu needed 41.25 seconds to hold off Baldwinsville’s Cierra Allen (41.59 seconds) at the top, with teammate Danelle Sims (43.96 seconds) in fifth place.
Akinpelu teamed with Maia Henry, Danelle Sims and Kristina Moore to finish second in the 4×400 relay in 4:18.45, with F-M (4:07.51) on top as Bethany Mitchell, Kristin Schug, Marie LeRoy and Rachel Wisely put C-NS (4:25.35) in third place.
Morgan Chewning-Kulick, in 3:02.27, was second to F-M’s Alana Pearl (3:01.42) in the 1,000-meter run. Taylor Parry gave C-NS a fourth-place time of 3:12.43.Chewning-Kulick also helped Moore, Jillian Stagnitta and Juliana Baslas get second place (10:14.27) to F-M (9:50.16) in the 4×800 relay, where C-NS gained fourth place in 10:36.14.
Morgan Mahoney made it to third place in the 3,000-meter run in 10:39.62, with Stagnitta sixth (11:28.74) as C-NS’s Madison Kolakowski (11:10.45) was fourth. Mahoney also made it to fourth place in the 1,500-meter run in 4:59.67.
The Northstars’ Jilliann Norris was fourth in the 600-meter run in 1:44.50, ahead of Basla (1:45.32) and Henry (1:45.49) from Liverpool, who rounded out the top six.
They all return to SRC Arena next Wednesday night for the Section III state qualifier, vying for spots in the March 1 state meet at Cornell University’s Barton Hall.
