Ben Petrella and Terrell Coleman provided the lead, and the rest of the Liverpool boys indoor track and team followed them, all the way to the Section III Class AA championship.
Winning two races apiece, Petrella and Coleman helped the Warriors hold off Cicero-North Syracuse in Wednesday night’s sectional meet at SRC Arena.
Liverpool had 107 points, to the Northstars’ 94, with Baldwinsville (61 points) well back in third place. And in the girls sectional meet, C-NS also was runner-up, earning 83 points to trail Fayetteville-Manlius (108.5 points) as the Warriors were fourth with 60 points.
In the first boys race of the night, the 3,200-meter run, Petrella, in nine minutes, 39.48 seconds, was part of a 1-2 finish with teammate Ty Brownlow, who posted 9:41.67.
Later on, in the mile, Petrella battled F-M’s Bryan Geehrer and won again, his time of 4:23.22 beating Geehrer by 1.65 seconds as Steve Schulz was fourth (4:32.15), holding off Brownlow (4:32.36) in fifth.
Coleman got going in the 1,000-meter run, where in 2:36.25 he edged F-M’s Bryan Geehrer (2:36.51) as Steve Schulz (2:37.69) held off the Northstars’ Andrew Bearkland (2:37.94) for fourth place, this before Bearkland took sixth place in the mile and after Nathan Poirier was sixth in the 3,200.
A bigger win came in the 600-meter run, where Coleman needed 1:27.43 to pull away from C-NS’s Allen Garnes (1:28.83) in second place, while Collin Gwilt was fourth in 1:29.87. To cap it off, Coleman, Gwilt, Schulz and Nick Davis won the 4×800 relay in 8:34.41, just ahead of West Genesee (8:36.72) as the Northstars (8:41.96) finished fifth.
Elsewhere for the Warriors, Brandon Mayfield was third in the 55-meter dash in 6.76 seconds, with Donald Frost third in the 300-meter dash in 37.92 seconds and Nazir Murray taking fifth place in the 55-meter hurdles
C-NS did win the 4×400 relay as Garnes, Zach Kennedy, Matt Williams and Ed Mahana posted 3:33.07, while Liverpool had Gwilt, Nick Davis, Josh Hickmott and Nazir Murray finish third in 3:42.87.
Kennedy (38.32 seconds) held off Matt Killian (38.72 seconds) for fifth place in the 300, but did better in the high jump, clearing 5’8″ for second place as Liverpool’s Nate Guarente (5’6″) was fourth and Jason Hughes got fifth place for the Northstars.
Killian did win in the 4×200, pairing with Jeremiah Willis, Tyler Days and Anthony Pauli to go 1:35.30 and pull away from Liverpool’s quartet of Mayfield, Frost, Murray and Paul Dewan, who were second in 1:38.92.
Willis went on to go 20′ 1/2″ in the long jump for second place, one inch behind Central Square’s Erich Metz (20’1 1/2″) as Days was third with 19’7″ and also fifth in the triple jump. Tyler Mosher, with a shot put toss of 46’7 3/4″, was second to Nottingham’s Jaleel Berry, who won with 51’1 1/2″.
Mahana, in 7.96 seconds, was second to Baldwinsville’s Evan Donhauser (7.91 seconds) in the 55-meter hurdles where Ryan Williams got third place in 8.54 seconds. Willis also was fourth in the 55 sprint (6.80 seconds), while Matt Kilian (6.88 seconds) got sixth place.
Moving to the girls meet, C-NS had several wins, starting with the 4×400, where Marie LeRoy, Sarah Davis, Jamie Wagner and Jilliann Norris finished in 4:11.41 to hold off West Genesee (4:12.15) as Liverpool got sixth place in 4:27.48. LeRoy was fifth (43.99 seconds) in the 300.
Then the Northstars went 1-2 in the 55 hurdles, where Cassie Baldwin won in 8.93 seconds and Brittany House was second in 9.04 seconds, both ahead of the Warriors’ Alexis Bittel (9.30 seconds) in third place.
Kierrah Butler threw the shot put 36’5″, nearly three feet ahead of West Genesee’s J’Nazia Anderson (33’11 1/4″) and the field. Shayla Webb took fourth in the long jump with a leap of 15’7 1/4″, where Bittel finished sixth.
Sasha Pulaski, who was sixth in the 300 behind LeRoy, was second in the 55 sprint in 7.54 seconds to Rome Free Academy’s Tekitha Posey-Barry (7.42 seconds). Norris was third in the 600 in 1:41.01, with Davis fifth in 1:43.11.
Liverpool got points from field events, too, none more than in the triple jump, where Bittel earned her team’s lone victory with a top effort of 35’6 1/4″, with Webb taking second place (35′ 1/2″) for the Northstars.
In the pole vault, Kelley Townley was second, clearing 9’6″, and Mackenzie Case was fourth (8 feet) behind Central Square’s Bethany Cripps, who topped 12 feet.
In the high jump, Megan Milazzo cleared 5 feet, the same height as Baldiwnsville’s Adiranna Straughter, but Straughter had fewer misses, so Milazzo settled for second place as Baldwin (4’10”) finished third. Trinity Gray took sixth place in the shot put.
Juliana Basla got second place (4:48.83) to F-M’s Kaitlyn Neal (4:37.90) in the 1,500-meter run. Basla, Kristina Moore, Windsor Ardner and Mallory Woytowicz were fourth in the 4×800 relay in 10:09.96 as C-NS had Norris, Davis, Emily Dembowski and Annina Marullo third in 10:05.98.
Basla also took third place in the 1,000 in 2:58.88, with Morgan Chewning-Kulick fifth in 3:07.55, ahead of Marullo in sixth. The Warriors’ Vanessa Eberhard got sixth place in the 3,000-meter run and C-NS was sixth in the 4×200.
