On the first Saturday in April, each of the Skaneateles track and field teams got underway, taking part with more than 20 other schools in the “Red, White, Blue and Gold” Invitational at Newark Valley High School.
The Lakers were part of the Class A/B division – and won it on the girls side, picking up 69 points to not only prevail there, but claim overall honors over Sidney, the C-D champions, who finished with 60 points.
Skaneateles got first place in the 4×100 relay, where Amanda Wetmore, Katelyn Ellison, Mia Grasso and Angela Krause blazed to a time of 52.29 seconds, well clear of runner-up Homer (54.01 seconds) and the rest of the challengers.
Another relay victory followed in the 4×400, with the Lakers seeing Julia Willcox, Shannan Roberts, Olivia Gage and Maddie Peterson go 4:23.44 to beat Dryden (4:26.93) by more than three seconds.
On her own, Willcox beat the field in the 800-meter run, her time of 2:23.57 more than three seconds ahead of Union-Endicott’s Emily MacKay (2:27.31).
Grasso, in a time of 1:03.06, gained second place in the 400-meter dash, with Peterson third in 1:03.56 and Ellison sixth (1:05.23) as Dryden’s Abbey Yatsko won in 1:00.91.Brady Iles rose to second place in the 400-meter hurdles in 1:14.67 as Yatsko won in a meet-record 1:06.3.
Wetmore also was third in the 100-meter dash in 13.02 seconds, while Krause gained sixth place in 13.50 seconds before she improved to third place in the 200-meter dash in 27.91 seconds, with Gage sixth (28.23 seconds) and Roberts (28.37 seconds) seventh.
Katherine Carlile had a sixth-place discus throw of 77 feet 8 inches, while Roberts was sixth (14’4”) and Krause eighth (13’7”) in the long jump. Natalie Condon got 12th place in the 1,500-meter run in 5:41.50, with Jillian Van Leer 14th in the high jump, clearing 4’2”.
In the boys meet at Newark Valley, Skaneateles picked up 15 points, most of them from seeing Tommy Hagen win the long jump. With a top leap of 20 feet 6 ¼ inches, Hagen edged out Dryden’s Tor Wildenstein, who was second in 20’6”, just a quarter of an inch behind.
Also, Hagen gained fifth place in the 200-meter dash in 24.61 seconds and Zach Blair was 12th in 25.59 seconds, while Chase Corcoran had a sixth-place discus throw of 115’5”.
Matt Leveroni, Alex Wulff, Jon Metz and Joe Capozza finished seventh in the 4×400 relay in 4:00.32. Capozza, Wulff, Sam McC;lintic and Calvin Blackwell were 11th in the 4×800 relay in 9:45.46, with McClintic running the mile in 5:02.66 to finish 12th. Leveroni was 21st in the 400 in 59.70 seconds, with Jon Metz and Max Moss 17th and 18th, respectively, in the triple jump.
