With four victories between them, Natalie Marra and Mia Montgomery gave East Syracuse Minoa girls track and field partisans plenty to cheer about during last Friday’s ESM Invitational.
Marra began her big effort in the 3,000-meter run. Twenty runners finished, but no one was close to the Spartans junior, who posted 10 minutes, 27.72 seconds and held off Skaneateles’ Kaitlyn Neal (10:34.39) for that top spot.
Much later in the meet, Marra was the favorite in the 1,500-meter run, and didn’t disappoint there, either, going 5:00.09 to crush 22 challengers, with another Skaneateles runner, Liz Dwyer, far back in second place in 5:17.03.
Moving to field events, Montgomery would win a closely-fought long jump, the freshman going 15 feet 3 inches on her best attempt to edge Indian River’s Lydia Torres (15’2”) by a single inch.
It was a more decisive victory in the triple jump, where Montgomery’s best attempt of 35’4 ¾” soared past the field by more than two feet, with Christian Brothers Academy’s Nafisa Williams second by going 32’9”.
In fact, out of the 22 teams entered, CBA finished third, with 48 points, better than ESM’s 41, but trailing Skaneateles (69.4 points) and Tully (64.4 points) at the top of the standings.
Anna Schug again won in the sprints for the Brothers, starting in the 100-meter dash, where she qualified for the final in 13.07 seconds and then won in 13.10 seconds, well clear of Indian River’s Mikayla Jones (13.51 seconds) in the runner-up spot.
Going for a sweep of the sprints in the 200-meter dash final, Schug almost attained it, going 26.40 seconds, just behind Corcoran’s Patrice Williams, who won in 26.31 seconds. Kiana Ferguson finished fifth in 27.36 seconds and helped Schug, Kate LaCasse and Ryleigh Peterson take third in the 4×400 relay in 4:17.33.
Skylar Decker took fourth in the 100-meter hurdles in 17.75 seconds, while LaCasse was fourth in the 400-meter dash in 1:03.10. Lucy Person was fourth in the 2,000-meter steeplechase (8:28.9) as Williams cleared 4’10” for fifth place in the high jump.
