Onondaga — All of the other events in Friday night’s Section III Class B girls indoor track and field championships at Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena were done by the time they reached the conclusion of the 4×200 relay.
At that point, Cazenovia, through its steady work in all disciplines, had pulled within 1.5 points of Christian Brothers Academy, and the last race, the shortest of the relays, would decide it.
Skaneateles won in one minute, 50.98 seconds. Then Cazenovia, featuring Olivia McEntee, Delaney Yates, Brenna Hughes and Kirsten Underwood, finished second in 1:53.88, with CBA third in 1:56 flat, more than two seconds behind the Lakers.
Since second place counted for eight points and third place six points, Cazenovia now had 96.5 points to CBA’s 96, and that’s how it ended, with the Lakers as sectional champions for the sixth year in a row by the narrowest possible winning margin as Skaneateles finished second with 76 points and Westhill-Bishop Ludden (69 points) was fourth.
Fittingly, it started with the first race, the 3,000-meter run, where the Lakers’ Meggie Hart pulled away to win in 10 minutes, 40.05 seconds, more than 11 seconds clear of Westhill-Ludden’s Genny Corcoran in the runner-up spot.
Cazenovia got 14 more points from the 1,500-meter run, where Hart was second in 5:00.31 and Clara Rowles claimed third place in 5:00.55. Megan Henderson was seventh.
Later, in the 4×800 relay, Hart, Rowles, Henderson and Maria Stalder went 10:11.14 and prevailed over Jordan-Elbridge (10:15.42), with CBA third in 10:16.24, a four-point difference.
It was important that the Lakers got points out of the sprints, where CBA was strongest. That included the 55-meter dash, where Kirsten Underwood was third in 7.69 seconds behind the Brothers’ duo of Anna Schug and Kiana Ferguson.
CBA did not place in the pole vault, but Cazenovia gained six points when Robbins cleared 8’6″ to finish third, while Gavitt cleared 7’6″ to tie for sixth, a half point that proved quite crucial by the time the night was done.
continued — Moving to the high jump, Tori Fischer was third, clearing 4’10”, while Jess Macheda landed in sixth place by topping 4’8″. Ryleigh Tillison got fourth place in the shot put with a heave of 28’3″, with Fischer landing another key point by getting sixth place (26’6 1/2″).
Maddy Gavitt gained second place in the long jump, going 15’3 3/4″ as Ferguson won, going 16’8 1/2″. Then Gavitt recorded a top triple jump of 32 feet 6 1/2 inches and got third place, good for six points as, again, CBA did not point.
Stalder, Olivia McEntee, Maddie Langey and Zoe Shephard paired up to finish second (4:21.53) to Skaneateles (4:18.18) in the 4×400 relay. Stalder also took seventh in the 600-meter run. Rowles took fourth place in the 1,000-meter run in 3:11.79, with Henderson sixth in 3:13.16 as CBA’s Olivia Morganti won in 3:06.37.
Yates added a fifth-place finish in the 55-meter hurdles in 9.84 seconds, with McEntee getting sixth place in the 300-meter dash in 45.32 seconds as Underwood finished eighth.
Meanwhile, Cazenovia’s boys indoor track team earned 23.5 points to finish eighth in its sectional Class B meet, with Westhill-Ludden claiming the top spot with 103 points.
Six of those points came in the 4×200, where Dylan Hahn, Alec Boone, Cooper Coleman and Dan McKillop gained third place in 1:39.89, just behind Westhill-Ludden (1:39.19) and Solvay (1:39.59).
Boone also was third in the long jump, going 19’1 1/2″, as he, along with Coleman, Hahn and Jack Eldred were sixth in the 4×400 relay in 3:51.46. James McPherson got sixth place in the mile in 4:57.58.
Will Huftalen tied for sixth in the pole vault, clearing 10 feet, and was seventh (34’8 1/2″) in the triple jump as Jake Robbins cleared 5’2″ in the high jump for sixth place. Will Kmetz had an eighth-place shot put throw of 36’11 3/4″.
