A strong spring for the East Syracuse Minoa boys track and field team that included OHSL Freedom division regular-season and post-season championships nearly included a Section III Class A-1 title, too.
During Friday’s sectional A-1 meet at Camden High School, the Spartans picked up 121 points, topping everyone in the 10-team field except Carthage, who won with 151 points. Jamesville-DeWitt finished eighth with 36 points.
Jeremy McGrath prevailed for ESM in the 110 high hurdles in 15.24 seconds over Carthage’s William Slade (15.71 seconds), with Isaiah Brooks third in 15.75 seconds. Moving to the long jump, McGrath won again with a top leap of 21 feet 3/4 inch.
In the 400-meter hurdles, McGrath was third in 59.53 seconds, with Lucas King (1:03.74) eighth. McGrath paired with Abdullah Mujcic, Noah Hodge and Cody LaRoche to finish second (44.10 seconds) to Whitesboro (43.64 seconds) in the 4×100 relay. LaRoche had a seventh-place long jump of 19’4 3/4″.
ESM also had big efforts in field events, including the discus, where Gavin Stevens won with a throw of 120 feet 7 inches as Martin Campbell was third, heaving it 118’7″, and Emir Karic was fifth, throwing it 113’8″ to beat out J-D’s Henry Middleton (113’1″), who was sixth.
Meanwhile, Ny’Zhier Jefferson and Gabe Holloman went 1-2 in the shot put, Jefferson winning with a throw of 43’4″ as Holloman got second place with 41’6″. Brooks was fourth, heaving it 41′ 1/4″, and Campbell finished 10th.
Mujcic, who was eighth in the long jump, got to third place in the 100-meter dash in 11.53 seconds and matched that third-place effort in the 200-meter dash in 23.33 seconds as Jordan Hodge was fourth in 23.56 seconds.Hodge, Henry, Nolan Byrd and Nate Castor were third in the 4×800 relay in 8:45.77.
Matt Young did best in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, getting second place in 10:09.68, with Jared Henry sixth in 10:43.51 and Nolan Byrd (11:10.78) in seventh place.
Elsewhere, Young was fifth in the mile in 4:37.18, beating out J-D’s Patrick Dye (4:42.43), who took sixth place, and Young also got fifth place in the 800-meter run in 2:05.54 as Henry (2:08.11) finished seventh.
Dye would take third place in the 3,200-meter run in 10:04.91, where ESM’s Nick Berg (10:55.97) was eighth Greg Buck was fifth in the five-event pentathlon with 2,101 points as J-D’s Ryan Bradford (1,865 points) got seventh place.
Connor Harrigan claimed sixth place in the high jump, ahead of Brooks, though both cleared 5’8″. Hunter Bruner had a sixth-place triple jump of 38’4 1/2″, one inch ahead of J-D’s Almighty Bornfreedom (38’3 1/2″).
For J-D, David Fikham rose to third place in the 400-meter dash in 52.61 seconds, with Mike Potamianos sixth in 53.71 seconds. Fikham (11.96 seconds) beat out Mike Anderson (11.99 seconds) for sixth in the 100 sprint as Alex Le cleared 11’6″ for third place in the pole vault as Chris Blust was fifth, topping 10’6″.
Anderson, Potamianos, Trey Greene and Joey Armenta were fourth in the 4×100 in 44.76 seconds, with Fikham joining Potamianos, Armienta and Johann Ebert for fourth place in the 4×400 relay in 3:33.05, ahead of ESM (3:50.45) in fifth place. Greene got his own fourth-place finish in the long jump with a leap of 19’11 1/4″.
Sam Glisson, James Pieri, Connor Evans and Taku LaClair were seventh in the 4×800 in 9:08.28. Alex Carbacio and Markos Petkopoulos were seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 110 hurdles, while Greene and Bornfreedom tied for ninth in the high jump.
