Both on the relay side and the individual side, the Skaneateles girls indoor track and field team could not have asked for a more promising start to its 2014-2015 season.
The Lakers sprinted past all of the other small schools in Friday night’s Jack Morse Kickoff Meet at SRC Arena, and finished third overall with 43 points. Only large schools Liverpool (67 points) and Cicero-North Syracuse (63 points) fared better.
Already, Skaneateles has secured a spot in February’s state qualifying meet in the 4×400 relay. The team of junior Olivia Gage, sophomore Shannon Roberts and freshmen Mia Grasso and Maddie Peterson posted a time of four minutes, 16.80 seconds, beating out runner-up West Genesee (4:18.09) to finish first in that race.
That was one of two Laker titles. Another came in the 1,500-meter run, where junior Kaitlyn Neal was the only girl in the field of 30 to break the five-minute mark, winning the race in 4:59.19.
Neal pulled far away from Fayetteville-Manlius’ Megan Menz, who was second in 5:20.76, with Menz just beating out Neal’s teammate, Liz Dwyer, who claimed third place in 5:21.89, meaning that Skaneateles got 16 points from this event alone.
Then sophomore Julia Willcox stepped in to earn eight more points in the 1,000-meter run, where in a time of 3:12.29 she finished a close second to Liverpool’s Morgan Chewning-Kulick, who won in 3:11.97. Willcox beat out two other Liverpool runners, Juliana Basla and Maia Henry, who were third and fourth, respectively.
Skaneateles also challenged for supremacy in the 4×200 relay, where Amanda Wetmore, Katelyn Ellison, Angela Krause and eighth-grader Cecilia Merrinan finished in 1:54.09, just behind Liverpool, who pulled out the race in 1:53.73.
On her own, Wetmore earned sixth place in the 55-meter dash in 7.81 seconds. Angela Krause earned 11th place in the triple jump, going 31 feet 8 3/4 inches, while Aubreah Lynn was 13th in the high jump, clearing 5’2″.
