Onondaga — Though pushed by plenty of challengers, the Jamesville-DeWitt girls indoor track and field team claimed the top spot in Wednesday night’s Onondaga High School League Division 1 championships at SRC Arena, and the Red Rams nearly won on the boys side, too.
In that girls meet, J-D had 158 points, pulling away from Homer (100.5) as East Syracuse Minoa was fourth with 69.5 points. In the boys meet, the Red Rams, with 103 points, only trailed Central Square (127 points), and ESM did better here, getting third place with 79 points.
Alexandria Payne remained J-D’s top performer, claiming victories in three different events, starting in the 55-meter hurdles, where Payne got the title 8.96 seconds, the only time under nine seconds.
Moving to the 300-meter dash, Payne, in 43.50 seconds, beat out Alexia Carr (44.37 seconds) for first place, and didn’t stop there, moving to the high jump and clearing 5 feet to beat out ESM’s Jennah Ferrari, who was second by clearing 4’8”.
J-D also had success in distance races, starting with the 600-meter run, where Casey Keane won in 1:45.17 and Katie Lutz (1:48.43) completed a 1-2 sweep, Then, in the 1,500-meter run, Hannah Butler went 4:55.76 to pull away and win as Amelia Gelbart was fourth in 5:41.16.
In the 4×800 relay, Butler joined Sophia Vinciguerra, Megan Brown and Elena Haarer as J-D prevailed in 10:28.40, with ESM (11:32.63) in fourth place. Keane, Mariyana Van Arsdale, Madelyn Spina and Amanda Semmel were second (4:25.97) to Homer (4:23.81) in the 4×400 relay, with ESM fourth in 4:51.95.
The Rams also were second in the 4×200, where Carr, Mackenzie Maxam, Adobea Abdo and Ciara Norris went 1:55.40, edged out by Homer (1:55.30) by inches, while ESM again had to settle for fourth place in 2:00.06. Abby Palin was third (11:50.27) and Alexandra Street fourth (11:58.92) in the 3,000-meter run. Norris went on to finish third in the long jump, going exactly 15 feet.
continued — Mariah Williams threw the shot put 29’10 ¾” and took second place, with ESM’s Lindsay Crego (29’1 ½”) beating out J-D’s Jessica Pace (28’4”) for the fourth spot. Gabrielle Tanksley, in the pole vault, cleared 9 feet, second to Central Square star Bethany Cripps (12 feet) as Sara Signorelli, topping 8’6”, finished third.
ESM did top J-D in the 1,000-meter run, where Natalie Marra, who was second (5:09.52) to Butler in the 1,500, prevailed in 3:11.66, edging out Vinciguerra (3:11.97) and Haarer (3:12.06) at the line as the Spartans’ Melanie DeFeo (3:38.36) finished sixth.
Mia Montgomery won, too, in the triple jump, where her best attempt of 35’9” was more than three feet ahead of Central Square’s Meghan Hoaglin (32’3 ½”). In the 55-meter dash, Montgomery, in 7.81 seconds, was second to Homer’s Alsasce Lorraine Sanders (7.60 seconds), while Maxam was third in 7.89 seconds and Carr (7.94 seconds) was fifth.
Also for ESM, Megan Vandewarker was fourth in the 1,000 in 1:50.56 behind Keane and Lutz, while Sarah Tingley finished sixth in the 3,000 in 12:44.32. Jacinta Hensinger (46.75 seconds) and Lashae Benjamin (46.87 seconds) were fifth and sixth, respectively, in the 300.
Moving to the boys side, ESM did quite well in distance races, including the 3,200-meter run, where Nick Berg won in 10:39.07 and J-D’s Joe DiDomenico (11:11.49) finished fourth, ahead of Alan Gao in seventh place.
Jim Kenyon gave the Spartans a win in the 1,000 in 2:47.08, with J-D’s Patrick Dye third in 2:50.85 and Nate Castor fifth (3:00.12) for the Spartans. Matt Young followed by winning the mile in 4:46.64, while Dye was second in 4:57.70 and Sam Glisson (5:03.13) gave the Rams a third-place finish.
To top that off, Berg, Kenyon, Young and Henry returned for the 4×800 and helped ESM win that race in 9:09.57, with J-D seeing Dye, Glisson, Chris Blust and Adam Hyatt getting third place in 9:20.32.
continued — Jeremy McGrath won, too, going 8.01 seconds to pull away from Oswego’s Christian Canbaling (8.34) and win the 55 hurdles, while J-D saw Nolan Roosa finish third (8.70 seconds) and Alex Carbacio fourth (8.83 seconds).
This came after McGrath was second in the 55 sprint in 6.90 seconds to Cabanling (6.77 seconds), while J-D had Jan Ramirez third in 6.94 seconds. McGrath, Isaiah Brooks, Jordan Hodge and Connor Harrigan were third in the 4×200 in 1:41.49, beating out J-D (1:42.66) in fourth place.
Ramirez and Rams teammate Evan Baxter each threw the shot put 41’1 ½” and shared third place, and Ramirez contended in the high jump, too, clearing 5’10” to finish second behind Oswego’s Kyle Crossman (6’2”). Brooks was fifth (5’8”) and Harrigan sixth for ESM.
In the 4×400, J-D’s quartet of Kellen Mulvihill, Andrew Pan, Will Rodriguez and David Finkman finished third in 3:58.40, just ahead of ESM, who had Connor Hillman, Alex Kubecka, Rishov Chatterjee and Jesse Hodge get fourth place in 4;17.44.
Alex Le was second in the pole vault for J-D, topping 10 feet to only trail Central Square’s Joe Weaver (12 feet), while Chris Blust was third, clearing 9’6”. David Fikhman finished third in the 300 in 39.53 seconds, while Roosa was seventh. Joey Armenta went to fourth place in the 600 in 1:33.58, edging ESM’s Jared Henry (1:33.75) for that spot, and added a sixth-place triple jump of 34’9 ½”.
