In the first large-scale Section III girls track and field meet of the spring, the Skaneateles Lakers found its way to the top.
During Friday’s East Syracuse Minoa Invitational, Skaneateles picked up 69.4 points, beating out a field of 21 other teams, including Tully, who finished a close second with 64.4 points. Christian Brothers Academy took third place with 48 points.
As they often do, Skaneateles achieved plenty in the relays, starting in the 4×100, where the junior quartet of Amanda Wetmore, Laurel Parker, Katelyn Ellison and Olivia Gage sped to first place in 52.06 seconds, comfortably ahead of runner-up Indian River, who finished in 52.47 seconds.
With the meet title on the line in the 4×400 relay, the Lakers won again, this time seeing sophomores Julia Willcox and Shannan Roberts pair up with freshmen Mia Grasso and Maddie Peterson to push Skaneateles to a time of 4:12.94, more than two seconds ahead of Tully’s second-place clocking of 4:15.09.
Moving to the 4×800 relay, Liz Dwyer paired up with Finan Malcolm, Elsa Soderberg and Jillian Van Leer, and Skaneateles again had a second-place finish, in 11:12.34, though it was far behind West Genesee’s top time of 10:16.20. All told, the Lakers got 28 of a possible 30 points in relays.
Individually, Kaitlyn Neal contended in the 3,000-meter run, the junior posting a time of 10:34.39 to finish second, ahead of everyone except ESM’s Natalie Marra, who won in 10:27.72.
When it was Dwyer’s turn to challenge Marra in the 1,500-meter run, the Skaneateles senior did quite well, going 5:17.03, but that meant another second-place finish since Marra won in 5:00.09.
Angela Krause won her 100-meter heat in 13.59 seconds and, in the finals, improved to 13.52 seconds and took third place, CBA’s Anna Schug prevailing in 13.10 seconds.
Moving to field events, Krause contended in the triple jump, too, going 32 feet 6 inches to get to third place. Krause also had a sixth-place long jump of 14’5 ½”, with Wetmore 15th in that same event. Keely Gregg topped 7 feet in the pole vault, tying for fourth place.
Grasso, who tied for seventh in the high jump (clearing 4’8”), made her way to third place in the 400-meter dash in 1:03.01, just behind Mexico’s Hunter Gowans, who won in 1:01.87 as Gage finished fifth in 1:03.73. Willcox was fifth in the 800-meter run in 2:27.40, while Maddie Peterson was sixth (27.45 seconds) in the 200-meter dash. Katherine Carlile was 15th in the discus.
