Throughout most of Thursday night’s Section III Class B championship meet at Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena, the Cazenovia girls indoor track and field team worked from behind, looking up at the likes of Westhill-Bishop Ludden and Cazenovia.
But then Ashley Kent and her teammates went to the field events and, with a late rush, overtook both of the sides in front of them to earn a fifth sectional title.
Kent had already finished third in the 55-meter hurdles in 9.76 seconds, but it was in the long jump and triple jump that she delivered her winning moves.
It was close in the long jump, but Kent, going 15 feet 8 ¾ inches, held off Clinton’s Rylee Meelan (15’7 ½) by 1 ¼ inches for the victory, and 10 crucial points.
Moving to the triple jump, Kent blew away the field, going 34’11 ½” on her best attempt, more than a foot and a half clear of Solvay’s Katie Harrington, who was second with 33’3”. Kent’s teammate, Caeli Carroll, was sixth with 29’4 ¾”.
This, along with other successes in field events, helped jump Cazenovia to a finishing score of 93 points, two more than Westhill-Ludden’s 91, while Skaneateles was third with 88 points.
Aside from Kent’s efforts, Cazenovia also got 13 points from the shot put, where Sarah Haley was second with a toss of 28’2”, Joanna Seeley was fourth (27’8”) and Holly Eberle sixth (25’5”).
Katie Robbins took third place in the pole vault, clearing 8 feet, while Tori Fischer, seventh in that same event, topped 4’8” in the high jump and made it to fourth place, with Jessica Macheda ninth.
Cazenovia’s best relay finish came in the 4×200, where Clare Costello, Molly Carges, Olivia McEntee and Delaney Yates posted a time of 1:54.34, just behind Westhill-Ludden, who won in 1:53.75.
Also, in the 4×800 relay, Megan Henderson, Zoe Shephard, Madison Langey and Meggie Hart finished third in 10:44.72. Shephard, Samantha Gates, Olivia McEntee and Caroline Hudson were fourth (4:30.99) in the 4×400 relay.
Clara Rowles, in the 1,500-meter run, gained second place in 5:04.68, just behind Jordan-Elbridge’s Abby Gugel (5:03.48). Henderson, fifth in the 1,500 (5:18.95), was fourth in the 1,000-meter run in 3:17.51, ahead of Milmoe in fifth (3:18.27) and Rowles (3:18.29) in sixth place.
Yates (9.78 seconds) and Carges (9.99 seconds) were fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 55 hurdles behind Kent. Gates took fifth in the 600-meter run in 1:54.24, with Grace Milmoe seventh. McEntee was seventh and Costello eighth in the 300-meter dash.
Meanwhile, on the boys side of the sectional meet, Cazenovia, led by Walker Nichols and Sean Satchwell (who won five events between them), gained 98 points, beating everyone except Skaneateles, who claimed the top spot with 105 points in a 10-team field.
Nichols was victorious in the 55 hurdles, his 8.05 seconds better than Skaneateles’ Tommy Hagen (8.40 seconds) and the field. Moving to the high jump, Nichols topped 5’10”, winning again as Skaneateles teammates Griffin Lawson and Eli Goodell (5’8”) tied for second.
To top it off, Nichols dominated the long jump, his best attempt of 20’4” the only one in the field better than 20 feet as Westhill-Ludden’s Alex Kiley was second (19’7”) and the Lakers’ Tom McNerney took sixth place with 18’10 ¾”.
Sean Satchwell won twice in distance events, starting in the 1,000, where he went 2:45.37 to hold off Jordan-Elbridge’s Tyler Jackson (2:46.46) as Austin Koennecke (3:10.27) finished sixth. Later in the meet, in the 600, Satchwell again won, in 1:27.65, with Milton (1:29.39) again in second place.
Tom McNerney, racing in the 300, grabbed fourth place in 38.57 seconds. Alex Devine took fourth (7.04 seconds) and Ryan O’Herien fifth (7.53 seconds) in the 55 sprint as Cooper Coleman and Casey Fenton joined O’Herien and Divine to finish second (1:39.17) to Skaneateles (1:37.86) in the 4×200.
O’Herien, McNerney, Alec Boone and Dylan Hahn were third in the 4×400 in 3:49.51, while Satchwell, Jimmy McPherson, Cooper Holgate and Brendan Coffey were third in the 4×800 in 9:29.85. Skaneateles swept all three relay titles, a key component in its eventual victory.
Fenton had a second-place triple jump of 41’11”, with Devine fourth (40’4 ½”) and Boone in seventh place. Sawyer Hunt, competing in the shot put, finished fourth with a throw of 40’9 ½”. Will Huftalen was eighth in the pole vault, clearing 9 feet.
A night earlier, Chittenango took part in the sectional Class A championship at SRC Arena, finishing fifth out of 10 teams on the boys side with 43 points and ninth on the girls side with 17 points. Jamesville-DeWitt won both of the team titles.
The Bears were victorious in the 4×800 relay, where Isaac Czarnecki, Phillip Abell, Mike Capeling and Ward Beley went 9:04.65 to pull away from New Hartford (9:08.40) and take the title.
Nick Stanton joined Czarnecki, Beley and Abell in the 4×400, where the Bears finished second in 3:48.58, edging out Homer (3:48.62) for that runner-up spot.
Czarnecki finished second (4:48.11) to J-D’s Patrick Dye (4:42.17) in the mile, while Stanton took second place in the 300 in 39.73 seconds behind Oswego’s Armand Vooris (38.92 seconds). Will Blanding was sixth in the 3,200 in 11:06.98, while Nate Lanning was eighth in the shot put.
Six of the Chittenango’s girls points came from the 4×400, where Krissy Roberts, Kaitlyn Swain, Alex Rheaume and Eryn Thompson finished third in 4:43.65. Roberts later finished fourth in the triple jump with a top attempt of 31’11 ¼” and was fifth in the long jump, going 14’6”.
In the 4×800, Thompson, Brooke Busa, Alyssa Crystal and Taylor Scalzo were fourth in 12:06.97. Busa added a sixth-place finish in the 3,000-meter run in 12:48.03. Chittenango finished seventh in both the boys and girls 4×200 relays.
