Far from a favorite when the girls Division II 4×400 relay started at last weekend’s state track and field championship meet, Christian Brothers Academy didn’t care – as long as it finished with gold medals.
The Brothers’ quartet, consisting of seniors Anna Schug and Kate Lacasse, plus sophomore Claire Bargabos and eighth-grader Olivia Morganti, took advantage of a mistake from the top qualifiers, Skaneateles, and went on to a satisfying victory in the small-school portion of the 4×400.
Skaneateles had the fastest time going into the meet, 3:58.81. But the Lakers false-started out of the race, and CBA took notice.
Bargabos ran a 1:01.20 opening leg, trailing Bronxville and Bayport-Bluepoint’s runners. Lacasse went 1:02.21 in her leg, but then Morganti had a third leg of 59.93 seconds to put CBA into third place going into Schug’s anchor leg.
Then Schug took off, going 55.69 seconds to pass both of the front-runners. By the time Schug crossed the line, the Brothers’ time of 3:59.04 had beaten Bronxville by 0.62 seconds, with Lake George third (4:00.68) and Bayport-Bluepoint fourth in 4:01.12. It also atoned for CBA not finishing in the 4×100 relay.
As the second-fastest qualifier going into the state Division II 200-meter dash, Schug had dreams of an individual state title after going 25.11 seconds in Friday’s heat, But in Saturday’s final, Schug tailed off to 25.41 seconds and finished fourth as Tapestry Charter’s Nia Stevens won in 25.07 seconds.
CBA also medaled in the boys Division II 4×400 relay, where Tom SanGiacomo, Pat Carey, Brendan Keeney and Zach Walsh won their heat in 3:27.58 and took fourth place overall. Bishop Loughlin won in 3:23.44.
Individually, Dominic Morganti made it to third place in Division II in the 3,200-meter run, and ninth overall, with a time of 9:16.02, improving upon his season-best 9:28.32 by more than 12 seconds. Dan Schaffer (Maine-Endwell) won Division II in 8:57.50 and Liverpool’s Ben Petrella was the overall state champion in a meet-record 8:52.42.
SanGiacomo missed out on reaching the 200-meter Division II state final by one-thousandth of a second, going 22.809 seconds to the 22.808 posted by Alden’s Christian Snell, so SanGiacomo finished ninth. Kiana Ferguson cleared 5 feet in the girls high jump, tying Skaneateles’ Mia Grasso for 10th place in Division II.
Jamesville-DeWitt sophomore Alexandria Payne expected to contend in the girls pentathlon, and did so.
Going 15.33 seconds in the 100 hurdles, clearing 5 feet 1 ¾ inches in the high jump, throwing the shot put 28’11”, going 16’5” in the long jump and running 800 meters in 2:25.13, Payne earned 3,266 points to finish fourth in Division I (large schools), Sweet Home’s Tiana Luton took the title with 3,541 points.
Fayetteville-Manlius did not have Kaitlyn Neal run at 3,000 meters, but Hornets teammate Alexandra Levy did so Friday night, and she held her own for a sixth-place finish in 9:40.58 as Corning’s Jessica Lawson sped to victory in 9:24.36. J-D’s Hannah Butler had a time of 10:22.57 to finish 24th overall.
A day later, in the 2,000-meter steeplechase, Neal, following a two-hour weather delay, Levy did even better, earning a medal podium spot by getting to fourth place in 6:51.28, not far from the winning 6:45.34 that Warwick Valley’s Megan Reilly posted. Chibu Ezidegwu was 14th in the boys triple jump, going 43’1 ¼”.
East Syracuse Minoa sophomore Mia Montgomery made it to 13th place in the girls Division I triple jump with a best attempt of 36’6”, while C-NS’s Shayla Webb finished third with 39’5 ¾”. Jeremy McGrath went 15.09 seconds in the 110 high hurdles to take 11th place, just behind another C-NS standout, Ed Mahana (15.07 seconds).
