Exactly two weeks before the Section III championships get decided at SRC Arena, the Fayetteville-Manlius indoor track and field team made a bold statement at at that same Onondaga Community College facility, sweeping both sides of the Fred Kirschenheiter Memorial Invitational.

Going first on Wednesday, the boys Hornets picked up a season-best 101 points, topping runner-up Liverpool’s total of 72 points, to claim top honors.

Like so many other times before, F-M cleaned up with points in distance running events, including a 1-2 sweep of the 1,000-meter run, where Kyle Barber, in two minutes, 31.52 seconds, prevailed and Bryce Millar (2:32.22) finished second.

Much the same thing happened in the 600-meter run, with Barber going 1:22.81 to win agian and pull away from Millar (1:26.76) in second place. To cap their efforts off, Barber and Millar joined Jon Abbott and Hamza El Habbal as F-M won the 4×800 relay in 8:19.10, well clear of Central Square (8:37.20) in the runner-up spot.

Abbott, on his own, finished a close second (4:30.95) to Auburn’s Justin Middleton (4:30.05) in the mile, with Adam Hunt sixth in 4:38.05 and Jamesville-DeWitt’s Patrick Dye fifth in 4:32.56.

Hunt was third in the 3,200-meter run in 9:56.18, behind teammate Patrick Perry (9:51.39) in second place and ahead of Riley Hughes (9:57.70) in fourth place as Liverpool’s Ben Petrella won in 9:29.08. But that still added up to 18 more points for the Hornets.

And 10 more came from the 4×400 relay, where El Habbal, paired with Parker Noble, Ed Cheathen and Jules Ngadula, held off Baldwinsville by inches, 3:29.22 to the Bees’ 3:29.34, for the top spot.

Cheathen (38.14 seconds) and Ngadula (38.48 seconds) were fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 300-meter dash, with Ngadula, Noble, El Habbal and David Blitz fourth in the 4×200 relay in 1:39.87.

For the second meet in a row, East Syracuse Minoa’s Jeremy McGrath was victorious in the 55-meter hurdles. McGrath, in a time of 8.11 seconds, edged past Baldwinsville’s Evan Donhauser (8.16 seconds) and the field, with Cheathen (8.53 seconds) in fifth place.

The Hornets’ Kyle Bronson threw the shot put 44 feet 9 3/4 inches, finishing third. J-D’s Will Cote took sixth in the long jump, going 18’9″, and adding a sixth-place triple jump of 39’1 1/2″. McGrath also was eighth in the 55-meter dash.

When it was the F-M girls turn on Thursday night, it got to 100 points, also pulling away from Liverpool (63 points) in the second spot as J-D rose to fourth place with 39 points.

Going 1-2 in the 1,000, the Hornets saw Olivia Ryan prevail in 2:58.84, well clear of Annika Avery, who was second in 3:04.78 and J-D’s Julia Fairbanks (3:16.09) was sixth.

Right after that, in the 3,000-meter run, F-M again swept the top two spots, this time with Sophia Ryan winning in 10:19.55, Samantha Levy second in 10:28.06 and the Red Rams’ Hannah Butler third in 10:54.83.

Avery got her victory in the 600, going 1:41.28 to beat a field that included J-D’s Elena Haarer in third place in 1:43.59 and ESM’s Natalie Marra (1:44.06) in fourth. Then, in the 4×800, Avery, Jenna Farrell, Sophia Ryan and seventh-grader Phoebe White won in 10:04.29, with J-D’s Haarer, Fairbanks, Megan Brown and Casey Keane fourth in 10:30.11.

Christabel Ezidiegwu gave F-M more points when she won the triple jump with a top leap of exactly 35 feet, nearly a foot better than Corcoran’s Taniya Williams (34’ ½”), with J-D’s Addobea Addo eighth. Also, Ezidegwu went 16’2 ½” in the long jump, second to Auburn’s Shahnika Williams’ Section III-best 16’10 ¾” as J-D’s Patrece Martin (15’5 ½”) was fifth.

In the 55 hurdles, J-D’s Alexandra Payne prevailed in 8.99 seconds, with F-M’s Gwenn Shepardson making it to second place in 9.22 seconds. Contending in the high jump, Payne cleared 4’10” for third place behind Mexico’s Tori Towndrow, who won with 5 feet.

Shepardson, Anna Perrotti, Shauna Cheathen and Phoebe White were fifth (4:26.20) in the 4×400, with Sydney O’Dell and Olivia Ryan joining Shepardson and Perrotti to take fourth in the 4×200 in 1:55.36.

Farrell was fourth in the 1,500-meter run in 5:05.44, while Mackenzie Pierie was fifth (11:07.60) in the 3,000. CBA sprint star Anna Schug earned third place in the 55-meter dash in 7.60 seconds, with teammate Kiana Ferguson seventh in 7.78 seconds. Payne got to fourth place in the 300 in 43.13 seconds, with Olivia Ryan (43.73 seconds) fifth for the Hornets.

Savannah Pidkaminy cleared 8’6” in the pole vault, giving the Hornets a fourth-place finish, and was seventh in the shot put with a top throw of 29’11”, just ahead of J-D’s Mariah Williams (29’1”) in eighth place.