Not once in the 2015 season did the Jamesville-DeWitt girls track and field team get beat, all the way to its last and most important test.
The Red Rams roared to victory in Wednesday’s Section III Class A-2 championships at Camden High School, picking up 168 points, well clear of runner-up Carthage (100 points). East Syracuse Minoa, with wins from Natalie Marra and Mia Montgomery, took third with 68 points.
Freshman Alexandria Payne featured again for J-D, going from a victory in the 100-meter dash in 12.71 seconds over Indian River’s MaKayla Jones (12.91 seconds) to a win in the 100-meter hurdles where, in 15.29 seconds, she blew out a field where no one else even broke the 17-second mark.
Not stopping there, Payne won a third time in the 200-meter dash in 26.08 seconds, where teammate Alexia Carr (27.03 seconds) finished fourth. She also tied for third in the high jump, clearing 5 feet as ESM’s Jolie Kiddle (4’10”) took fifth place.
Marra began her distance sweep in the 1,500-meter run, going 4:52.72 to beat J-D teammates Hannah Butler (4:56.21) and Sophia Vinciquera (5:08.66). Then Marra took the 3,000-meter run in 11:03.85, holding off Butler (11:07.04) once more.
The Rams’ Rachel Fairbanks was victorious in the 800-meter run in 2:27.25, with Viniciquerra (2:39.04) again grabbing third place, while Megan Brown was third (8:16.54) in the 2,000-meter steeplechase.
J-D would win in the 4×800 relay, too, where Fairbanks, Brown, Elena Haarer and Kim Walsh posted 10:11.27 to beat the field as the Spartans’ quartet of Marra, Juliette Miller, Melanie DeFeo and Megan Vandewarker finished third in 10:27.83.
Sara Signorelli, topping 8 feet, beat teammate Gabrielle Tanksley (7’6”) for a 1-2 J-D finish in the pole vault, while Patrice Williams won the long jump, going 16’ ¼” as Ciara Norris (15’8 ¾”) made her way to fourth place.
To counter, ESM had Montgomery, who finished third in the long jump (15’10 ¼”), to unleash a winning triple jump of 36’11”, with Martin doing no better than 33’9”, but still finishing third.
The Rams saw Jessica Pace throw the discus 82’11” to finish third. Mariah Williams, sixth in that event, improved to fourth (30’ ¾”) in the shot put as ESM got Lindsey Crego to finish fourth (81’7”) and Sarah Tangredi fifth (79’7”) in the discus.
Lainey Foti, with 1,960 points, finished second to New Hartford’s Lauren VanWagoner (2,159 points) in the pentathlon, with ESM’s Mackenzie O’Neil (1,756 points) in fourth place. J-D also was fourth in the 4×100 relay in 53.85 seconds, with ESM fifth in 54.39 seconds.
Casey Keane (1:01.96) and Haarer (1:03.21) were third and fifth, respectively, in the 400-meter dash as ESM’s Katlyn Boyland (1:05.09) finished sixth. The Spartans’ Mackenzie Bourdon was fourth (18.15 seconds) in the 100 hurdles behind Payne, adding a fifth in the 400 hurdles (1:14.42) ahead of Ciara Short in sixth place.
In the boys Class A-1 sectional meet held two days later at Camden, J-D (91.5 points) edged ESM (90.5 points) for third, with New Hartford (99 points) and Carthage (94 points) just ahead of them.
Some of those duels were head-to-head, as in the long jump, where J-D’s Dylan Volk won with a leap of 21’4 ¼” and ESM’s Jeremy McGrath (21’1 ¾”) was second, with the Rams’ Sean Mulvihill getting third place (20’3 ½”) and the Spartans’ Abdullah Mujcic (20’1 ½”) fifth. Volk added a triple jump victory by going 43’5 ¼” as Indian River’s Mitchell Bursey (42’ ¾”) was second.
Mujcic edged Watertown’s Michael Teamer, 11.33 seconds to 11.35, and won the 100, with Mulvilhill fifth. Mujcic took third (23.43 seconds) in the 200, where Mulvihill finished sixth.
McGrath, for his part, won the 110 hurdles in 15.60 seconds and Isaiah Brooks (16.04 seconds) take third place. McGrath also got second place in the 400 hurdles in 59.69 seconds.
Sam Glisson, Colin Palladino, Taku LaClair and Connor Evans were second for J-D in the 4×800 in 9:04.65, with ESM’s Jared Henry, Nate Castor, Jim Kenyon and Tyler Hodge third in 9:06.28. The Rams were also fourth (45.24 seconds) in the 4×100 as Palladino, Austin Philleo, Tyler Gabriel (who was fourth in the 400) and Shane Smith took second (3:37.71) to New Hartford (3:31.35) in the 4×400.
In the shot put, Joe Murphy’s throw of 46’4” landed him a quarter-inch behind Fulton’s Nick Reitz (46’4 ¼”) as ESM’s Gabe Holloman (43’4”) was fourth. In the discus, Murphy again was second, his 118’1” beating out Spartan teammates Martin Campbell (114’3”) and Gavin Stevens (111’6”), who were third and fourth, respectively.
Jake Saletsky gave J-D a second-place pole vault clearance of 11 feet, with teammate Alex Le and ESM’s Scott Huynh tied for fifth. Also, Nolan Roosa was fifth in the high jump, clearing 5’8”, with Jesse Johnson (5’6”) seventh.
J-D’s Almighty Bornfreedom was second in the pentathlon with 2,388 points, with ESM’s Greg Buck in fourth place. The Spartans’ Matt Young earned second place in the steeplechase in 10:26.03, with Henry third (10:32.29 as Young also was sixth in the mile, with Philleo getting sixth place in the 800.
