Joe Connor’s 28 points earned in three different field events boosted the Westhill-Bishop Ludden boys track and field team to first place in last Wednesday’s Onondaga High School League Liberty division championships at Marcellus.
The Warriors finished with 135 points, well clear of runner-up Christian Brothers Academy, who had 86 points. Host Marcellus had 65.4 points for fourth place as Solvay (47.4 points) beat out Jordan-Elbridge (39 points) for sixth place.
Connor got it going in the long jump, winning it with a top leap of 20 feet 7 inches and seeing Keandre Sanders get third place with a leap of 19’5”. Then, in the triple jump, Connor flew 41’7 ¾”, just beating out Sanders, whose 41’6” made it a 1-2 finish.
This was on top of Connor’s second-place finish in the high jump, where he cleared 6 feet, behind only Altmar-Parish-Williamstown’s Sage Bartlett (6’2”).
Bryan King ruled in the pole vault for the Warriors, the only competitor to clear 11’6” as Marcellus’ Sam Stearns topped 11 feet for second place and King’s teammate, Ben Eassa, was third, clearing 10’6”.
Garnet Remillard gave Westhill-Ludden a big presence in distance races, winning the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10:21.18, more than 23 seconds ahead of Cazenovia’s James McPherson (10:44.68) as Alex Ladstatter was fourth in 11:02.12. Remillard also got second place in the mile in 4:39.74 behind CBA’s Dominic Morganti, who won in 4:34.61.
Sanders made it to third place in the 100-meter dash in 11.56 seconds and was fifth (24.02 seconds) in the 200-meter dash. King was fourth in the 110 high hurdles in 18.08 seconds. Adam French, Cody Badman, Evan Watt and Ben Hunter went 46.76 seconds in the 4×100 relay for third place, while Marcellus was fifth in 46.95 seconds.
Marcellus did get a win in the 4×800 relay, where Patrick McGuane, Matt Strempel, Sean Raymond and Joe Riccardi got a time of 8:24.61 to pull away from the field. Westhill-Ludden was fourth in 8:48.53 as Solvay (9:24.18) grabbed fourth place.
Individually, McGuane needed 2:03.77 for second place in the 800-meter run, with Strempel third in 2:05.46 as Syracuse Tech Central’s Solomon Lawrence won in 2:00.09. Raymond made it to third place in the high jump, clearing 5’10” as Caleb Wetherell tied for fourth to go with a fourth-place triple jump of 38’10 ¾”.
Riccardi had his best showing in the 3,200-meter run as he took second place in 10:44.04 behind Morganti (10:03.87), while the Warriors’ Jake Suddaby (10:57.93) and Jack Savage (10:59.61) were fifth and sixth, respectively.
Ethan Mosure was third in the mile in 4:50.36, with Riccardi (4:51.35) in fifth place. Andrew Marsh ran to sixth place in the 400 hurdles in 1:03.74, while Michael Welch just missed the points in the triple jump, going 36’2 ½” to finish seventh.
Solvay won twice, including the pentathlon, where Garrett Lee was tops in three of five events, ultimately earning 2,647 points. Teammate Nick Ferri finished fifth with 2,088 points as Westhill-Ludden’s Owen Hoyne (2,364 points) and Will Ringwood (2,171 points) were third and fourth, respectively.
The Bearcats’ Colton Francemone beat the field in the 400 hurdles, roaring to a time of 58.92 seconds as Matysuk finished third in 1:00.70. He was also fifth (18.12), ahead of the Mustangs’ Sean Raymond (19.11 seconds), in the 110 hurdles, and even found time to get fifth place in the 3,000 steeplechase in 11:14.25 and fifth place (38’6 ¾”) in the triple jump ahead of Lamar Flood (36’6 ¾”) in sixth place.
Jaidin Jackson had a third-place discus throw of 116’4”, two spots ahead of Westhill-Ludden’s Nick Visconti (109’2”) in fifth place. Nate Gardner was part of that fourth-place tie in the high jump, also clearing 5’4”.
Jordan Devereaux (11.93 seconds) beat out Tony Matysuk (11.97 seconds) for sixth place in the 100 and Devereaux took sixth place in the 200 in 24.07 seconds and Mike Tomoroska was sixth (9 feet) in the pole vault to go with a seventh in the long jump.
J-E’s Brad Marshall broke up the Westhill-Ludden field events monopoly and gained his team’s lone win in the shot put, throwing it 46’1 ¾” to hold off the Warriors’ duo of Sean Corbett, who was second with 44’9 ½”, and Will Swartwood, who was third by heaving it 41’6”.
The Eagles also had Russell Hines, Ethan Kinney, Pat Fordyce and Anthony Ortiz nearly win the 4×400 relay, going 3:34.08 to finish inches behind Altmar-Parish-Williamstown (3:33.93), but ahead of Westhill-Ludden in fourth place (3:42.21) and Marcellus (3:42.56) in fifth place.
On his own, Hines got second place in the 400-meter dash in 52.28 seconds and fifth (18’10”) in the long jump as Ortiz was sixth (18’8 ¼”). Kinney finished third in the 400 in 53.12 seconds behind Hines and Lawrence, who won in 50.89 seconds. Kinney, in 23.96 seconds, also beat Sanders for fourth place in the 200.
