What both of the Fayeteville-Manlius track and field teams want the most is a chance to sweep the Section III Class AA championships that takes place next Wednesday at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium.
Before that, though, the Hornets ventured to nearby Central Square and, in essence, tuned up by sweeping through Thursday’s CNY Counties League American division meets, with 205 points to beat the host Redhawks (145 points) on the boys side and 227.5 points to dominate the girls meet.
Adam Hunt recorded a mile time of 4:29.41 and ran together with Millar, who finished in 4:29.54, and the pair stayed together in the 3,200-meter run, too, as Millar won in 9:34.52 and Hunt (9:34.89) was a few steps behind.
Kyle Barber dipped under 50 seconds (49.76, to be exact) and won the 400-meter dash with Hamza El Habbal (53.27 seconds) in third. In the 800, Jon Abbott lost a close duel to Central Square’s Sean Kuehn, 1:58.53 to Kuehn’s 1:58.45.
Millar, Barber, El Habbal and Abbott would claim the 4×800 relay in 7:55.63, the Hornets’ fastest time of the spring, with El Habbal, Abbott and Barber joining Ed Cheatham in the 4×400 relay as the Hornets, in 3:31.68, completed a sweep of the three relay events.
On his own, Cheatham went 17.22 seconds to prevail in the 110 high hurdles as Mohammad Qubaisy finished fifth. In the 400 hurdles, Cheatham, in 1:03.29, got second place behind teammate Sean Donlon, who won in 1:02.41. Patrick Perry (10:13.79) and Brian Geehrer (10:22.14) swept the top two spots in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Cheatham, Parker Noble, Christian Bagabo and Jules Ngadula won the 4×100 relay in 44.70 seconds, half a second ahead of Central Square’s 45.20 seconds. This came before Bagabo won the 200-meter dash in 23.43 seconds, with Noble (23.64 seconds) in third place.
Noble had a second-place long jump of 19 feet 9 ½ inches, with Conner Florczyk sixth, and in the triple jump Noble again finished second, going 40’1 ½”.
Chibu Ezidegwu, who was fourth in the triple jump (38’9 ½”), cleared 5’8” to finish second in the high jump, with Jack Fuller topping 8’6” in the pole vault for his own third-place finish. John Ziobrowski was sixth and Nick Sischo seventh in the shot put, though Sischo improved to fifth in the discus, heaving it 98 feet.
Moving to the girls CNYCL American meet, Christabel Ezidegwu started out by going 1-2 with Gwenn Shepardson in the 100-meter hurdles, Ezidegwu winning in 16.55 seconds and Shepardson (17.11 seconds) right behind.
Later, in the triple jump, Ezidiegwu went 36’ ½” and won going away, with Molly Quinlan (30’1”) fifth, while Shepardson won the 400 hurdles in 1:08.76, pulling away from teammate Nancy Bansbach, who was second in 1:11.94.
Ezidiegwu, who was fourth in the long jump (15’10 ½”), also paired with Anna Perrotti, Shauna Cheatham and Sarah Olick-Sutphen (sixth in the long jump) in the 4×100 relay, where F-M held off Corcoran, 51.38 seconds to 51.51, Cheatham (27.16 seconds) and Perrotti (27.48 seconds) were third and fourth, respectively, in the 200.
Sophia Ryan had a superb 1,500-meter run, winning in 4:35.28 as Annika Avery (5:00.29) was far back in second place, but was second (2:26.65) to Olivia Ryan (2:22.65) in the 800. Olivia Ryan got second place in the 400 sprint in 59.96 seconds, while Christy Berge’ (1:03.53) was fourth. The Ryan sisters, joining Perrotti and Olick-Sutphen, won the 4×400 relay in 4:09.29.
In the 4×800, Jessica Howe, Annika Avery, Phoebe White and Samantha Levy posted 9:52.99, with Levy later winning the 3,000-meter run in 10:05.02 as Reilly Madsen (10:49.50) was second and White going 7:24.9 in the 2,000-meter steeplechase to win there.
Savannah Pidkaminy topped 9 feet in the pole vault, second to Central Square star Bethany Cripps, who cleared a season-best 11’6” as Alexandra Johnson (7’6”) finished fifth. Pidkaminy also was second in the discus, throwing it 89’3” as Brittany Travis (75’8”) got third place.
Adding six more points, Pidkaminy cleared 4’4” in the high jump, finishing third as Travis was second (30’5 ½”) and Sophia Jones third (28’2 ¼”) in the shot put.
