A stream of strong distance runners, on both the girls and boys sides, made sure that the Fayetteville-Manlius indoor track and field teams did not get caught in the quest for the Section III Class AA championship Wednesday night at SRC Arena.
All told, the Hornets picked up 122.166 points to win the girls title and 117 points to win the boys championship. In each instance, Cicero-North Syracuse finished second, and in both events F-M piled up points with victories and high finishes in races 600 meters or longer.
The girls began to take over in its first race, the 3,000-meter run, where Samantha Levy won in 10 minutes, 19.48 seconds to pace a top-four sweep that included Sophia Ryan (10:45.79), Jenna Farrell (10:49.96) and Mackenzie Pierie (10:53.22), with Reilly Madsen (11:08.88) in sixth place. That race alone gave F-M 29 points.
Moving to the 1,000-meter run, Olivia Ryan won in 2:58.63, with Annika Avery second (2:58.68) and Sophia Ryan third in 3:03.73, leading to 24 more points. In the 1,500-meter run, Levy was third (4:59.43) and Sophia Ryan second (4:59.36) behind West Genesee’s Carly Benson (4:51.16), with Farrell in seventh place, trailing Olivia Ryan (5:16.69) in sixth.
Though she struggled in other events, Christabel Ezidegwu was victorious in the triple jump, her best attempt of exactly 36 feet beating out C-NS’s Javielle Fanizzi (35’8”) and the rest of the field.
Gwenn Shepardson, Phoebe White, Anna Perrotti and Shauna Cheathen were third in the 4×400 relay in 4:16.12, while Farrell, Levy, Avery and White were third (10:14.34) in the 4×800 relay. Savannah Pidkaminy cleared 8 feet in the pole vault, taking third place.
Shepardson went to the 55-meter hurdles and, in 9.39 seconds, finished a close second to C-NS’s Brittany House (9.29 seconds). Perrotti was seventh in the 300-meter dash and paired with Cheathen, Sydney O’Dell and Maya Chiesa to place fifth in the 4×200 relay in 1:56.24. Chiesa tied for sixth in the high jump, clearing 4’6”.
In the boys AA meet, Bryce Millar swept the 3,200-meter run and mile, taking the 3,200 in 9:24.32 over Liverpool rival Ben Petrella (9:26.07) as Adam Hunt (9:36.72) and Patrick Perry (9:46.55) were fourth and fifth, respectively.
Then, in the mile, Millar steadily worked his way to a second victory in 4:30.60 and saw Kyle Barber (4:31.15) pass Petrella (4:31.31) at the wire for second place, with Hunt (4:44.26) in fifth.
Even in the 1,000, Millar was involved, second (2:36.69) to Barber, who won in 2:39.01, and in front of Jon Abbott (2:36.98) in third place. Barber was also victorious in the 600 in 1:24.97, getting away from another Liverpool runner, Dan Muldoon (1:26.39) in the runner-up spot.
F-M also was second in the 4×400, where Hamza El Habbal, Ed Cheathen, Jules Ngadula and Sean Donlon posted 3:39.22 to finish behind Baldwinsville’s 3:36.06. El Habbal, Abbott, Patrick Perry and Tim Poole were third in the 4×800 in 8:33.35, with the Hornets seeing Ngadula, El Habbal, Parker Noble and Ben Testani take third place (1:39.57) in the 4×200.
Cheathen got to third place in the 300-meter dash in 37.94 seconds and fourth place in the 55-meter hurdles in 8.82 seconds. Noble was third in the long jump, going 19’8”, and added a fourth (38’10”) in the triple jump, with Conner Florczyk (38’ ½”) in fifth place. Kyle Bronson was fourth in the shot put, heaving it 43’5 ½”, just ahead of Taylor Smach (41’7 ¾”) in fifth place.
In the sectional Class B meet one night later, CBA’s Anna Schug won twice, going 7.34 seconds to take the 55 sprint over Westhill-Bishop Ludden’s Tatiana Monds (7.58 seconds) and then pulling away to win the 300 in 41.17 seconds, where teammate Kiana Ferguson (44.14 seconds) was third.
Schug, Ferguson, Skylar Decker and Anna Langlois were fourth (1:55.21) in the 4×200, the same finish that the Brothers got in the 4×400, where Julie McInvale, Lucy Person, Grace O’Connor and Meghan Graber posted a time of 11:18.31.
CBA’s 22 points in the boys sectional Class B meet included Dominic Morganti finishing second (10:08.53) to Hannibal’s Jason McFarland (10:00.87) in the 3,200, and then going to the mile and, in 4:48.49, again finishing runner-up to McFarland (4:44.51). Brendan Keeney was fourth in the 1,000 in 2:49.02 and fifth (4:57.50) in the mile.
