Onondaga — From distance runs to field events, indoor track and field athletes from Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse found plenty of success during Wednesday night’s Section III state qualifying meet at SRC Arena.
As a result, a large local contingent will make their way to Cornell University’s Barton Hall this Saturday to take part in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships, including a cadre of Warriors runners who already have cross country state titles on their resume.
Ben Petrella, the individual state cross country champion heading to West Point, won the boys 3,200-meter run in nine minutes, 39.13 seconds, beating out Rome Free Academy’s Davone Hernandez (9:40.28) as the Warriors’ Ryan Comstock was sixth in 10:23.06.
Liverpool went 1-2 in the 1,000-meter run, where Terrell Coleman won in 2:41.56, beating out Stephen Schulz (2:42.13) for that top spot. Ty Brownlow was third in the mile in 4:32.18, beating out C-NS’s Andrew Bearkland (4:34.93), who was fourth.
Brownlow, paired with Petrella, Schulz and Coleman, win the 4×800 relay in 8:22.11, ahead of Baldwinsville (8:24.20) and a field that included the Northstars (8:52.55) in fifth place.
Brandon Mayfield was the fastest qualifier in the 55-meter dash in 6.67 seconds, and matched that exact time in the final, only to finish 0.01 seconds behind Nottingham’s Shaheed Dickerson, who won in 6.66 seconds. C-NS’s Jeremiah Willis was fourth in 6.76 seconds.
Donald Frost, in a time of 37.83 seconds, was third in the 300-meter dash as Rome Free Academy’s Bradley Dougherty won (37.49 seconds) won. Willis also contended in the long jump, his best leap of 21 feet 5 ¾ inches not far from Skaneateles’ Tommy Hagen, who won with 21’8”.
C-NS reached the win column on the boys side in the 4×200 relay, where Willis, Tyler Days, Anthony Pauli and Matt Kilian went 1:35.24 to pull clear of B’ville (1:37.72) and earn a berth in the state meet. Days, on his own, tacked on a sixth-place triple jump of 40 feet 1 ¼ inches.
continued — And in girls action, the Northstars were 1-2 in the girls shot put, where Destiny Monica won with a top throw of 36 feet 9 ¾ inches, well clear of Kierrah Butler, who was second by throwing it 34’4 ½”.
Cassie Baldwin slowed from 8.87 seconds to 8.90 in the 55-meter hurdles final, but still finished second to Jamesville-DeWitt’s Alexandria Payne (8.58 seconds) as Brittany House got third place in 9.11 seconds and Liverpool’s Alexis Bittel was seventh in 9.25 seconds, just missing the finals.
Baldwin then took third in the high jump, clearing 5 feet, one inch less than Payne, who won with 5’1” as the Warriors’ Megan Milazzo was fifth, clearing 4’10”.
Shayla Webb, with a triple jump of 36’7”, finished second behind East Syracuse Minoa’s Mia Montgomery (37’1 ¼”), with Bittel eighth by going 33’5”. Webb also was fourth in the long jump, going 15’6” as Bittel (15’3 ½”) got sixth place.
Sasha Pulaski qualified second for the girls 55 sprint final in 7.52 seconds, and went faster in the final (7.51 seconds), but still got third place as Rome Free Academy’s Tekitha Posey-Barry won in 7.29 seconds.
C-NS also had Marie LeRoy, Sarah Davis, Jamie Wagner and Jilliann Norris finish second (4:08.74) to West Genesee (a school-record 4:02.77) in the girls 4×400 relay. LeRoy got fifth place in the 300 in 44.33 seconds, while Davis went on to finish ninth (1:43.22) and Norris 16th in the 600-meter run.
In the boys 4×400 Zach Kennedy, Allen Garnes, Ed Mahana and Matt Williams went 3:30.96 to finish well ahead of Liverpool’s Nick Davis, Nazir Murray, Josh Hickmott and Mike Mahan in third place (3:40.13), but just behind Baldwinsville, who prevailed in 3:29.99.
Kennedy made it to third place in the high jump, clearing 5’10” as Oswego’s Kyle Crossman (6’2”) won it, while also taking seventh in the 300 in 38.37 seconds. Mahana contended in the 55 hurdles, taking third place in 7.93 seconds as East Syracuse Minoa’s Jeremy McGrath (7.69 seconds) won. Garnes took fourth in the 600-meter run in 1:27.60, half a second ahead of Williams (1:28.10) in fifth place.
continued — Liverpool saw Juliana Basla finish second three times. In the 1,000, she went 2:59.70 as Morgan Chewning-Kulick (3:01.13) was third, each of them behind West Genesee’s Carly Benson (2:57.86), and in the 1,500-meter run Basla, in 4:53.67, trailed Jordan-Elbridge’s Abby Gugel (4:50.28) as Vanessa Eberhard finished third in 4:55.63.
As if that wasn’t enough, Basla, Chewning-Kulick, Eberhard and Windsor Ardner got second place in the 4×800 relay in 10:05.63 to Fayetteville-Manlius (9:32.82), with C-NS seeing Davis, Wagner, Annina Marullo and Emily Dembowski get third place in 10:15.97. The Northstars were also eighth in the 4×200.
Kelley Townley earned third place in the pole vault, clearing 9’6” as Central Square’s Bethany Cripps won by clearing 12 feet. Marullo was eighth in the 1,500 in 5:04.37. The Warriors’ Jillian Stagnitta was 15th in the 3,000-meter run, where Fayetteville-Manlius’ Kaitlyn Neal broke her own sectional record by more than 11 seconds, winning in 9:28.59, C-NS’s Tyler Mosher finished seventh in the boys shot put, heaving it 40’6”.
