Perhaps the Liverpool girls indoor track and field team was paying closer attention to what its male counterparts were doing than anyone could imagine.
For when the girls Warriors had its turn in the season-opening Jack Morse Kickoff Meet Friday night at SRC Arena, it did exactly the same thing, finishing in first place and fending off a strong challenge from Cicero-North Syracuse to do so.
At meet’s end, Liverpool had 67 points, just clear of the Northstars’ total of 63 points, a closer outcome than the boys victory over C-NS (65 points to 57) two days earlier. Skaneateles was third in this meet, posting 43 points, best among small schools.
And it was mostly earned on the oval, especially in the 1,000-meter run, where the Warriors’ Morgan Chewning-Kulick won in a time of three minutes, 11.97 seconds, edging out Skaneateles’ Julia Willcox (3:12.29), with two other Liverpool runners, Juliana Basla (3:15.16) and Maia Henry (3:17.14) third and fourth, respectively, leading to 20 points. C-NS’s Taylor Parry (3:17.54) was fifth.
As for sprint star Ore Akinpelu, the Warriors senior won her 55-meter heat in 7.55 seconds, but finished second to C-NS’s Javielle Fanizzi, who posted 7.50 seconds in the previous heat. Fanizzi went on to finish second (34 feet 6 inches) to East Syracuse-Minoa’ Mia Montgomery (35’11 3/4″) in the triple jump.
Moving to the 300-meter dash, Akinpelu, in 41.78 seconds, again was a runner-up, this time to Altmar-Parish-Williamstown’s Skylar Pastor, who won in 41.69 seconds, this time in the same heat.
No one got in front of Akinpelu and her Liverpool teammates in the 4×200 relay, though, as Yasmeen Griffin, Danelle Sims and Natalie Kurz joined Akinpelu to post 1:53.73, edging out Skaneateles (1:54.09) for the top spot.
Back in the 4×800 relay, Chewning-Kulick, Basla, Henry and Kristina Moore finished second in 10:11.84 behind West Genesee, who won in 9:57.08 as C-NS’s quartet of Parry, Megan Trubia, Jilliann Norris and Annia Marullo were fourth in 10:34.44.
And in the 4×400, Liverpool saw Griffin, Sims, Kurz and Amelia Johnson make it to fourth place in 4:30.74, with Maire LeRoy, Courtney Mahan, Kristen Schug and Abbey Szumloz putting the Northstars in fifth place in 4:33.36. The Warriors also had Abby McNamara finish fourth in the 3,000-meter run in 11:18.89, with Stagnitta fifth (11:30.50) and Trubia sixth (11:35.00) for the Northstars.
C-NS also had Brittany House finish second in the 55-meter hurdles in 9.39 seconds to Jamesville-DeWitt’s Alexandra Payne (9.21 seconds), with Cheyanna Colin (9.53 seconds) in fourth place.
Destiny Monica had a second-place shot put toss of 33’2″, trailing only Nottingham’s Shayna Santarelli-Hansen (36’8 1/4″). Norris, for her part, got to third place in the 600-meter run in 1:44.01, with Mia Pestle fourth (5:22.44) in the 1,500-meter run. Liverpool’s Kelly Townley cleared 7 feet in the pole vault, taking sixth place.
