West Genesee’s girls indoor track and field team nearly claimed the runner-up spot during Wednesday night’s CNY Counties League National division championships at SRC Arena.
In the end, the Wildcats, with 103 points, finished one point behind Liverpool, who took second, each of them in a futile chase against Cicero-North Syracuse, who rose to the top spot of the five-team field with 140 points.
Still, WG won several races, starting with Emily Young going 10 minutes, 44.09 seconds to take the 3,000-meter run by a big margin as Mia Mitchell (11:36.68) finished fifth, and continuing when Maria Matkoski went 3:03.27 to dominate the 1,000-meter run, beating the field by nearly 10 seconds.
Carly Benson took her turn in the 600-meter run, prevailing in 1;40.14 by nearly four seconds over C-NS’s Jilliann Norris (1:44.08), with Alicia Sakran (1:47.84) sixth. Megan Delia, in the 300-meter dash, went 42.79 seconds to pull away from C-NS’s Marie LeRoy (43.91) seconds and win that sprint.
Matkoski and Young, paired with Kendall Dombroske and Mia Mitchell, won the 4×800 relay in 9:56.49, the only time under 10 minutes, and WG also won the 4×200, where Matkoski again ran a leg, joining Benson, Kelsey Fox and Shelby Kiteveles to go 1;53.94 and hold off Baldwinsville (1:54.66) at the line.
In field events, Delia went 33’10” in the triple jump, second to C-NS’s Shayla Webb (34’4”), with Katherine Graziano sixth. J’Nazia Anderson threw the shot put 32’4”, second to C-NS’s Kierrah Butler (34’11 ½”), while Fox had a fourth-place long jump of 15’ ¼”. Michela Kahsay cleared 4’6” in the pole vault for fifth place.
Dombroske got fourth place in the 1,500-meter run in 5:07.96. Fox got fourth place in the 55-meter dash in 7.94 seconds and Madalyn Benson was fifth (9.87 seconds) in the 55-meter hurdles. Delia, Carly Benson, Madalyn Benson and Janet Nolan were third in the 4×400 relay in 4:26.61.
Meanwhile, WG’s boys indoor track team only managed 29 points to finish fifth in its CNYCL National meet. David Leff, in 9:51.73, was second to Liverpool’s Ben Petrella (9:41.66) in the 3,200-meter run, while Ryan Dunning ran the mile in 4:46.69 and took fourth place.
WG’s best relay finishes came in the 4×800, where Dunning, Leff, Russ Graziano and Sean Byrnes were third in 8:43.07, and the 4×200, where Mark Kopp, Mark Dellefave, Esisas Brunfeld and Chris Petosa were third in 1:42.25. Kopp, Dellefave, Petosa and Javier Monserrate were fourth in the 4×400 relay in 3:45.65.
Graziano got sixth place in the 600 in 1:30.52. Hunter Buza and Byrnes were seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 1,000, while Tim Huppman was eighth in the 55 hurdles and Marcus Body was ninth in the 55 sprint.
Monserrate beat out Petosa for seventh place in the 300. Mitch Colvin took seventh place in the triple jump and Andy Edgar was ninth in the shot put.
WG’s teams return to SRC Arena next Wednesday night for the Section III Class AA championships.
