Without question, the Liverpool boys indoor track and field team did not like finishing behind Cicero-North Syracuse at the Feb. 4 Section III Class AA championship meet.
So when the two sides returned to SRC Arena a week later for the CNY Counties League National Division championship meet on Wednesday night, the Warriors got the best of it, scoring 156 points to the Northstars’ 139, with Baldwinsville (106 points) in third place.
Nearly sweeping the relays, Liverpool saw Peter Gonzaleez, Collin Gwlit, Jamie Gadaleta and Dan Muldoon finish in a time of 3:35.14, while C-NS had Matt Williams, Allen Garnes, Collin Ryan and Ed Mahana get third place in 3:37.23.
Then, in the 4×800, Connor Buck, Dylan McCarthy, Nick LeClair and Dan Muldoon went 8:34.47, holding off B’ville (8:36.70) as Paul Dehm, Chris Hannan, Evan Tracy and Andrew Bearkland put C-NS in third place in 9:04.35.
Only in the 4×200 did the Warriors get beat as Gonzalez, Gadaleta, Brandon Mayfield and Donald Frost went 1:36.90 to finish just behind B’ville (1:36.69), but ahead of Matt Killian, Daquan Mathis, Matt Romanyk and Corey Mitchell as C-NS again was third in 1:39.40.
In the 1,000-meter run, McCarthy prevailed in 2:36.17, holding off LeClair (2:37.97) as Bearkland was fourth in 2:39.95. Moving to the mile, McCarthy won again, going 4:24.64 as Ben Petrella, in 4:30.07, pulled away from Bearkland (4:51 flat) in third place. Zach Wagner finished sixth in 5:02.22.
Muldoon gained an individual victory in the 600-meter run in 1:28.19, beating out Garnes (1:29.20) and Connor Buck (1:29.20), while Jared George was fifth in 1:31.66.
Buck did win the 3,200-meter run in 9:55.58, with teammate Ben Petrella second in 10:12.50. C-NS’s Joe Tricarico (10:40.07) and Chris Hannan (10:47.85) were fourth and fifth, respectively.
Gonzalez won the 300-meter dash, his time of 38.45 seconds enough to hold off Henninger’s Deven Redden (38.63 seconds), with Gwilt fourth in 38.80 seconds and Williams sixth.
Mayfield, by a margin of less than a hundredth of a second, finished second (6.819 seconds) to B’ville’s Sam Mahar (6.817 seconds) in the 55-meter dash, where Killian (6.99 seconds) was fourth.
C-NS swept to victories in all of the field events, three of them by George Reader.
In the long jump, Reader went 19’9 ¾”, again leaving Mayfield a close second as his best jump went 19’9 ½”, just a quarter-inch behind Reader, while Romanyk was third with 19’3 ¾” and the Warriors’ Rashan Crenshaw (18’10 ¾”) was fourth.
Then, in the triple jump, Reader unleashed a top attempt of 40’8”, leaving B’ville’s Austin Catalano (38’10 1/4”) nearly two feet behind, with Frost (36’11 ¾”) in fourth place.
To top it off, in the high jump, Reader earned a victory by clearing 6 feet, with Liverpool’s Nate Guarente second (5’8”) and the Northstars’ Zach Kennedy clearing 5’6” for third place.
In a tense pole vault, Mark Hentges won for C-NS, clearing 13 feet, while David Lewis topped 12’6” to give Liverpool a second-place finish and the Northstars’ Mitchell Brown (11’6”) taking third place.
C-NS also had a a 1-2 finish in the shot put. Tyler Mosher had a top throw of 45 feet 6 inches and Ross Mathewson was second with 44’2 ½” as Liverpool’s Cameron Goodson (37’7 ¼”) was fifth.
Mahana, competing in the 55-meter hurdles, was second in 8.43 seconds behind B’ville’s Evan Donhauser (8.07 seconds), with Mahana’s teammate, Nick Payrot, fourth in 9.14 seconds.
