Whether it was the boys from East Syracuse Minoa or the girls from Jamesville-DeWitt, area track and field fans were quite happy at the end of last Monday’s Onondaga High School League Freedom division championship meet at Fulton.
Repeating what they had done in the regular season, the boys Spartans and girls Red Rams won their respective team titles. To prevail, the ESM boys had to hold off Central Square, 106.5 points to 104, with J-D (68 points) in third place.
Jeremy McGrath’s quartet of victories paced the ESM boys effort. In the 110 high hurdles, McGrath, in 15.11 seconds, and Isaiah Brooks (15.76 seconds) pulled off a 1-2 finish.
Then McGrath added a victory in the 400-meter hurdles in 58.63 seconds over Phoenix’s Chris Fisk (59.24 seconds), and moved on to the long jump, where with a best leap of 20 feet 11 inches, he beat Central Square’s Erich Metz (20’4 ¾”) as Abdullah Mujcic was sixth, going 19’4 ¼”.
Mujcic had won the 100-meter dash, his time of 11.43 seconds beating out Mexico’s Logan Burrows (11.55 seconds), while J-D’s Jhakeer Jamison, in 11.57 seconds, settled for third place. Moving to the 4×100 relay, Mujcic, McGrath, Noah Hodge and Cody LaRoche went 44.78 seconds to beat the Red Rams’ quartet of Jamison, Mike Potamianos, Jan Ramirez and Trey Greene, who was second (45.28 seconds), half a second behind.
Matt Young started ESM’s winning effort by taking first place in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10:20.5. In other distance races, Jared Henry got fourth place in the 800-meter run in 2:08.26, while Jordan Hodge was fifth in the 200-meter dash in 23.89 seconds and seventh in the 100 behind Mujcic.
Valuable points came from field events, too. ESM’s Gabe Holloman was third in the shot put, throwing it 43 feet 6 ¾ inches ahead of Ny’Zhier Jefferson (42 feet) in third place. Connor Harrigan cleared 5’8” in the high jump for fourth place, with J-D’s Jesse Johnson fifth by topping 5’6”. Hunter Bruner was sixth (39’2 ½”) in the triple jump.
For J-D, Patrick Dye won the 3,200-meter run in 10:00.15, a race where Young finished fourth in 10:07.72. Dye also was second (4:40.69) to Cortland’s Andrew Boyce (4:36.15) in the mile, while Miles Chandler was sixth in 4:51.54 to go with a sixth-place finish in the 800 (2:09.86).
Henry Middleton made it to second place in the discus, his throw of 119 feet trailing only Central Square’s Justin Allison (130’10”) as ESM had Gavin Stevens get fourth place by throwing it 116’1”.
Potamianos needed 52.44 seconds to finish second behind Central Square’s Will Gordon (52.04 seconds) in the 400-meter dash. Chris Blust cleared 10’6” for fourth place in the pole vault as the Spartans’ Jesse Hodge was fifth. Nick Mannion was sixth in the 3,000 steeplechase, with Alex Carbacio sixth in the 110 hurdles.
Potamianos, Joey Armenta, David Fikhman and Johann Ebert were third in the 4×400 relay in 3:34.34, where ESM got a valuable point by finishing sixth in 3:43.98. Ryan Bradford took fifth in the pentathlon with 2,181 points, ahead of ESM’s Greg Buck in sixth place.
On the girls side, J-D continued its season-long dominance, picking up 171 points, with ESM strong, too, as it got 106 points for second place.
Alexandria Payne won three events for the Rams, going 15.57 seconds to easily prevail in the 100-meter hurdles (no one else broke 17 seconds) and also taking the 200-meter dash in 26.63 seconds, where Alexia Carr (27.61 seconds) was fifth.
In the high jump, Payne prevailed by clearing 4 feet 10 inches with fewer misses than Fowler’s Erykah Bailey, while ESM’s Jennah Ferrari was third, topping 4’8”. Payne was also second (13.13 seconds) to Homer’s Alsasce Sanders (13.01 seconds) in the 100 sprint, just missing out on a fourth title.
J-D won two of three relays. In the 4×800 relay, Casey Keane, Rebecca Shen, Kim Walsh and Sophia Vinciguerra put J-D on top in 10:24.65, while ESM had Kassandra Burr, Melanie DeFeo, Katherine Jacobs and Sage Almstead second in 10:35.14, as Burr also finished fourth in the 800 in 2:36.84.
Then, in the 4×400, Amanda Semmel, Chloe Hayward, Alexia Carr and Elena Haarer would hold off Homer, 4:15.49 to the Trojans’ 4:17.14. This came after Hannah Butler won the 800 in 2:28.91, more than three seconds ahead of Chittenango’s Kaitlyn Swain (2:31.97).
Mariah Williams, with a throw of 99’10”, won the discus over ESM’s Lindsay Crego, who had a top throw of 94 feet, as J-D’s Jessica Pace was fourth with a throw of 83’8”. Crego also was fourth in the shot put with a heave of 28’ ½”, in between Williams, who was second with29’6 ½” just behind Mexico’s Morgane Lindanda (29’11”), and Pace, who was fifth, throwing it 27’9 ¾”.
In the pole vault, Gabrielle Tanksley and Sara Signorelli each cleared 9 feet, lining up behind Central Square star Bethany Cripps, who managed to top 12’6 ¼”. Elena Haarer took second place in the 400 sprint in 1:01.78, with Keane third in 1:02.20 and ESM’s Megan Vandewarker sixth in 1:03.66. Vanderwarker, Jacinta Hensinger, Makaila White and Kat Boland were fourth in the 4×400 in 4:23.67.
Lainey Foti, with 2,067 points, earned third place in the pentathlon, with the Spartans’ Mackenzie O’Neil fourth. Ailish McDevitt got fifth place in the 400 hurdles in 1:19.45.
On ESM’s side, Natalie Marra rolled to a victory in the 1,500-meter run in 4:47.56, with Butler second in 4:51.68 and Vinciguerra third in 5:07.58. Marra then went 10:58.39 for another victory in the 3,000-meter run, where J-D had Abby Palin third in 11;24.70 and Abigail Leavitt (11:53.63) in fourth place.
Mia Montgomery, who was third in the 100 sprint in 13.69 seconds (teammate Kaylee DeLucia was sixth), went on to win the triple jump with a leap of 35’11 ½”. She also matched Cripps as they each had top long jumps of 16 2 ½, where Mackenzie Maxam was fourth for J-D, going 14’11 ½” before taking sixth in the triple jump.
Beside all that, Montgomery was victorious with DeLucia, Lindsey Russell and Lashae Benjamin in a close 4×100, winning in 52.57 seconds to Central Square’s 52.61 as J-D was fourth in 53.51 seconds with Carr, Maxam, Amy Shen and Ciarra Norris taking part.
