Going into next Wednesday’s Section III Class AA championship meet, the Fayetteville-Manlius indoor track and field teams have all the momentum possible
In fact, the girls Hornets come off back-to-back titles, having rolled to 102 points and first place in Thursday’s George Constantino Memorial Invitational at SRC Arena.
Liverpool, with 63 points, was second, while Jamesville-DeWitt got 36 points to finish fourth and East Syracuse Minoa (18 points) tied for ninth, with CBA earning eight points.
During the distance events, F-M saw Jenna Farrell go 3,000 meters in 10 minutes, 52.22 seconds, holding off Baldwinsville’s Maizy Ludden (10:54 flat) by less than two seconds, while Farrell’s teammate, Reilly Madsen, was third in 10:54.61.
Later in the meet, Farrell paired with Mackenzie Pierie, Megan Menz and seventh-grader Phoebe White as F-M, in 10:39.04, pulled away from Cicero-North Syracuse (10:53.19) and the field to win the 4×800 relay. ESM finished ninth in 11:48.98.
In order to win the 600-meter run, Olivia Ryan had to go one minute, 36.91 seconds to speed away from CBA’s Anna Schug, who earned all of her team’s points by finishing second in 1:40.27.
The Hornets’ Sophia Ryan finished fourth in the 600 1:41.75 and ESM’s Megan Vandewarker was eighth. Ryan also took fourth (3:10.10) in the 1,000-meter run, with the Spartans’ Juliette Miller in fifth place (3:10.71) and J-D’s Elena Haarer (3:11.71) beat out F-M’s Samantha Levy for sixth place.
Also, F-M saw Annika Avery go 4:41.90 in the 1,500-meter run to pull away from the pack led by ESM’s Natalie Marra, who finished second in exactly 4:50. Mackenzie Pierie was eighth in 5:16.09 on F-M’s behalf.
F-M got a trio of third-place finishes from Christabel Ezidegwu, including the 55-meter hurdles, where in 9.23 seconds she was just behind teammate Gwenn Shepardson (9.20 seconds) in second place, with J-D’s Alexandria Payne taking the victory in a quick 8.90 seconds.
Not stopping there, Payne cleared 4 feet 10 inches in the high jump, gaining second place behind C-NS’s Nicole Herringshaw (5 feet), and Payne paired with Haarer, Rachel Fairbanks and Casey Keane as the Red Rams finished second in the 4×400 relay in 4:12.20 behind Liverpool (4:05.66) as F-M’s quartet of Shepardson, Maya Chiesa, Christy Berge’ and Phoebe White was fourth in 4:28.52.
In the long jump, Ezidegwu went 16’8 ½” for third place as J-D’s Patrece Martin (16’3 ½”) was fourth, while in the triple jump a top effort of 35’1 ½” again put Ezidegwu in third, just behind ESM’s Mia Montgomery, who got second place with 36’7” as Liverpool’s Alexis Bittel (37’5 ½”) won.
During the pole vault, F-M’s Savannah Pidkaminy topped 8 feet 9 inches, the same as Westhill-Bishop Ludden’a Katherine Doherty, but did so with more misses, so Doherty won and Pidkaminy settled for second place as J-D’s Sarah Signorelli and Gabrielle Tankersley were fourth and sixth, respectively, though both cleared 8 feet.
Pidkaminy also was seventh in the shot put, heaving it 29’10 ¾” as teammate Sophia Jones was 10th and J-D’s Mariah Williams finished ninth.
Anna Perrotti nearly won the 300-meter dash for the Hornets, taking second place in 44.38 seconds, just behind Henninger’s Dominique Hopkins (44.20 seconds), while J-D’s Alexia Carr gained 10th place. The Hornets added a fifth-place time of 1:57.15 in the 4×200 relay as Shepardson, Chiesa, Cady Barns and Sydney O’Dell took part.
