Every bit of talent, effort and heart was required, but when the scores were added up, the Skaneateles girls track and field team were crowned as Section III Class B-1 champions for the fourth year in a row.
In a tense sectional meet Thursday at Westhill High School, the Lakers picked up 144 points, which was just enough to hold off host Westhill-Bishop Ludden (135 points) as Cazenovia, with 101.33 points, settled for third place.
A major factor in the outcome was Skaneateles winning all three relays. It started in the 4×800, normally not the strongest Laker event, but it was here as Natalie Condon, Juila Willcox, Finan Malcolm and freshman Katie Olsen finished in 10 minutes, 20.50 seconds, beating Westhill-Ludden (10:24.82) by more than four seconds.
Later in the meet, the Lakers went to its sprint specialties and saw Angela Krause, Cecilia Marrinan, Katelyn Ellison and Amanda Wetmore go 50.24 seconds to take the 4×100 relay, edging out Christian Brothers Academy (50.51 seconds) for that top spot.
To cap off the relay sweep, another different Lakers quartet, that of Maddie Peterson, Olivia Gage, Mia Grasso and Shannan Roberts, go 4:04.60 to dominate the 4×400 relay, more than 10 seconds clear of runner-up South Jefferson (4:15.32) and the field.
Going to individual events, Skaneateles had five of the top seven finishers in the 100-meter dash, with Wetmore prevailing in 12.95 seconds and Marrinan third in 13.01 seconds as Krause (13.30 seconds) beat out Angelina Reese (13.44) and Laurel Parker (13.51) for fifth place. Claire Raddant and Bella Reese were 10th and 11th, respectively.
Though CBA’s Anna Schug won the 200-meter dash in 25.75 seconds, Skaneateles claimed the next four spots, worth 22 points as Marrinan finished second in 26.55 seconds, inches ahead of Peterson (26.57 seconds), with Roberts fourth in 27.50 seconds and Krause fifth in 27.65 seconds.
Peterson, without all of that help, still won the 400-meter dash in 1:00.08 to the 1:00.50 posted by CBA’s Kate Lacasse, with Gage (1:01.35) fifth and Roberts (1:01.38) sixth.
Then Grasso, in the 400 hurdles, went 1:06.58 to beat the field as Brady Iles got third place in 1;11.54. Grasso also was second in the high jump, clearing 5 feet 2 inches, just behind CBA’s Nafysa Williams, who won by topping 5’3” as Grasso got eighth place (14’9 ¾”) in the long jump.
Willcox proved quite valuable, first by winning the 800-meter run as, in a time of 2:23.66, she got away from Cazenovia’s Meggie Hart (2:26.32) in second place. Then, in the last race of the day, the 2,000-meter steeplechase, Willcox, by finishing third in 7:57.31, secured the clinching points to withstand Westhill-Ludden’s last-second comeback.
Iles also was fourth in the 100-meter hurdles in 17.11 seconds, getting four valuable points amid a Westhill-Ludden sweep of the top three. Jillian Vanleer, taking part in the five-event pentathlon, got fifth place, earning 1,587 points, while Condon was seventh in the 3,000-meter run in 12:13.02.
Krause, with a top triple jump of 32’1”, rose to third place. Ali Grant gave Skaneateles more points by throwing the discus 88’3” to finish second to South Jefferson’s Emily Kellogg (93 feet), while Katherine Carlile was sixth with a throw of 84’9”. Lyda Buck had a sixth-place pole vault clearance of 8’6”.
While all this was going on, Tommy Hagen and Chase Corcoran won field events for the Skaneateles boys track team as, with 31 points, it took eighth place in a nine-team field where Westhill-Ludden (143 points) and CBA (125 points) claimed the top two spots.
Hagen ruled in the long jump, where his best leap of 20 feet 11 ½ inches put him ahead of Westhill-Ludden’s Keandre Sanders, who was second with 20’8 ¼”. Hagen’s teammate, Alex Vanriper, took sixth place with a leap of 19’2” before he was eighth (36’5 ¼”) in the triple jump.
In his specialty, the discus, Corcoran unleashed a throw of 136 feet 8 inches, with no one else closer than Solvay’s Jadin Jackson, who was second with a throw of 124’11”. Corcoran didn’t do as well in the shot put, where he was 12th with a toss of 36’6’.
Brahm Malcolm was fourth in the 110 high hurdles in 17.11 seconds. Nick Paciorek, Calvin Blackwell, Alex Wulff and Liam Kerrigan went 9:38.09 in the 4×800 relay for a fifth-place finish as Wulff took ninth (2:17.35) in the 800. Max Moss finished fifth in the pentathlon with 1,916 points to match Vanleer’s effort on the girls side.
In the 4×400, Skaneateles was fifth as Joe Capozza, Zach Blair, Cross Bianchi and Matt Leveroni posted a time of 3;41.46. Sam McClintic ran the mile in 4:58.48 and got seventh place, just missing the points. Chris Niebuhr got to eighth place in the 3,200-meter run in 11:37.34. Nicola Kunz was ninth in the high jump, clearing 5’4”, with Ryan Willcox 11th.
Blair took 10th place in the 100 sprint in 12.13 seconds and also was 10th in the 400 sprint in 54.81 seconds, with Jon Metz (55.37 seconds) edging out Capozza (55.38 seconds) for 12th place and Leveroni 17th. Capozza was ninth in the 200 in 24.68 seconds, while Bianchi (25.14 seconds) was 15th.
