Indoor track and field teams from Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse now are closing in on the post-season, which starts in a big way with the Section III Class AA championships on Feb. 4.
In the meantime, both sides sought more wins during the Fred Kirschenheiter Memorial Invitational, which took place Wednesday and Thursday at SRC Arena.
Again, the boys sides went first, and Liverpool picked up 72 points to finish second to Fayetteville-Manlius, who won with 101 points, as C-NS got to third place with 58 points.
Only once did the Warriors hold off the sea of F-M distance runners, as Ben Petrella, in the 3,200-meter run, prevailed in nine minutes, 29.08 seconds, well clear of the Hornets’ Patrick Perry (9:51.39) as Ty Brownlow added a fifth-place finish in 10:06.05 and Ryan Comstock was eighth.
Adding to that, Brandon Mayfield won the 55-meter dash, his time of 6.826 seconds enough to hold off Auburn’s Leon Atkins, who finished in exactly 6.83 seconds for the runner-up spot. Dan Muldoon finished third in the 300-meter dash in 38.11 seconds.
Later, in the 4×200 relay, Mayfield, paired with Donald Frost, Jamie Gadaleta and Peter Gonzalez, won that race in 1:38.06 over Henninger (1:38.36), with C-NS seeing Matt Killian, Corey Mitchell, Matt Romanyk and Daquan Mathis get fifth place in 1:39.92.
Connor Buck made it to third place in the mile in 4:31.55, just ahead of C-NS’s Andrew Bearkland (4:32.21) in fourth place. Dylan McCarthy was third in the 1,000-meter run in 2:35.24, with Nick LeClair (2:47.59) settling for seventh place and C-NS’s Paul Dehm eighth in 2:47.92. McCarthy also got to fourth in the 600-meter run in 1:28.16, with Buck seventh and C-NS’s Jared George ninth.
Buck, McCarthy, Brownlow and Petrella were third in the 4×800 relay in 8:49.09, leaving C-NS’s quartet of Bearkland, Dehm, George and Allen Garnes fourth in 8:55.81. Also, Frost, Gonzalez, Gadaleta and Collin Gwilt gave Liverpool a third-place time of 3:40.58 in the 4×400 relay, with C-NS’s Zach Kennedy, Collin Ryan, Matt Williams and Ed Mahana fourth in 3:46.51.
C-NS did its biggest damage with a pair of 1-2 finishes in field events. During the shot put, Ross Mathewson stood out, winning with a top throw of 45 feet 5 ¼ inches, while Tyler Mosher finished second by heaving it 45’ ¾”.
Then, in the pole vault, the Northstars’ Mark Hentges would soar above the field by clearing 12’6”, leaving teammate Mitchell Brown second despite clearing 11’6” with fewer misses than Liverpool’s David Lewis, who settled for third place.
Also, Mahana finished fourth in the 55-meter hurdles in 8.50 seconds. George Reader had a fifth-place triple jump of 39’5”, got to eighth place in the high jump (5’6”) and was 10th in the long jump with 18’5 ¼”, just ahead of Romanyk (18’5”) in 11th place.
In the girls Kirschenheiter meet 24 hours later, Liverpool again finished second to F-M, this time getting 63 points to the Hornets’ 100, with C-NS (32 points) making its way to fifth place.
Ore Akinpelu, in a time of 41.12 seconds, pulled away from West Genesee’s Megan Delia (41.81 seconds) to win the 300, also getting 7.60 seconds for fourth place in the 55 sprint as C-NS’s Javielle Fanizzi (7.64 seconds) was sixth.
To cap her day, Akinpelu paired with Danelle Sims, Natalie Kurz and Yasmeen Griffin as, in 1:51.47, the Warriors held off Skaneateles (1:52.31) to win the 4×200. C-NS, in a time of 1:56.62, finished fifth.
Juliana Basla was superb for Liverpool in the 1,500-meter run, finishing second in 4:57.09 to West Genesee’s Carly Benson (4:47.34), with C-NS’s Mia Pestle sixth in 5:08.06. The Warriors also saw Morgan Chewning-Kulick finish third in the 1,000 in 3:08.63, where the Northstars’ Annia Marullo (3:16.90) finished seventh.
Also, in the 4×400, Danelle Sims, Yasmeen Griffin, Natalie Kurz and Hejal Patel were second in 4:18.76, trailing only Baldwinsville, who won in 4:11.71. C-NS was ninth.
C-NS junior Jilliann Norris went 1:41.89 in the 600, a close second behind F-M’s Annika Avery (1:41.28), with Basla fifth in 1:44.50, Taylor Parry seventh (1:46.11) and Chewning-Kulick 11th. Norris, Marullo, Parry and Madison Gross were third in the 4×800 in 10:19.06, where Liverpool (10:31.07) settled for fifth place.
The Warriors’ Alexis Bittel had a third-place triple jump of 32’8 ½” and was fourth in the 55 hurdles in 9.54 seconds, just ahead of the Northstars’ Cheyanna Colin (9.58 seconds), who got to fifth place, with Bittel also eighth in the long jump.
JeNiece Gallishaw, throwing the shot put 30’11”, was fifth and Jasmine Hall sixth (30’9”) behind C-C-NS’s Destiny Monica (32’1 ½”) in fourth place, with Monica’s teammate, Kierrah Butler, grabbing ninth place.
In the high jump, the Northstars’ Brittany House cleared 4’10” to finish fourth, with fewer misses than teammate Nicole Herringshaw in fifth place, while Whitney Hotchkiss was fifth (8 feet) in the pole vault, ahead of the Warriors’ Kelley Townley, who tied for eighth. Liverpool’s Vanessa Eberhard and Abby McNamara were ninth and 10th, respectively, in the 3,000-meter run.
