With Raenah Campbell at the forefront, the Skaneateles girls track and field team lay claim to the Onondaga High School League Liberty Central division regular-season championship in the most emphatic way possible.
First place was on the line last Wednesday at Buckley-Volo Field, as were Lakers bragging rights, as Skaneateles traveled to Cazenovia and, fueled by Campbell’s three individual titles, the visitors won by an 83-58 margin.
Just five days earlier, in the CBA Brother Basilian Invitational on May 5, Campbell broke the Skaneateles school record in the 400-meter hurdles. She wouldn’t match that time here, but in one minute, 8.2 seconds Campbell still finished first.
That added to a total that included a 100-meter hurdles win in 15.9 seconds and a victory in the 200-meter dash in 27.2 seconds. As if all that wasn’t enough, Campbell would pair with Brady Iles, Maddie Peterson and Shannan Roberts to go 4:25.8 and win the 4×400 relay, completing a Skaneateles relay sweep.
Earlier, Nicole DeRosa, Natalie Condon, Julia Willcox and Kaitlin Olsen went 10:48.2 to grab first place in the 4×800 relay, and that dominance continued in the 4×100, where Peterson, Angela Krause, Emme Conan and Mia Grasso prevailed in 50.5 seconds.
Krause had needed 13.2 seconds to beat the field in the 100-meter dash. Grasso, in 1:02.5, beat out Roberts (1:04.5) in the 400-meter dash as Willcox rolled to an 800-meter victory in 2:26.9.
Cazenovia did better in the field events. Still, Grasso tied Maddy Gavitt in the high jump, each of them clearing 4 feet 8 inches, while Krause finished second in the triple jump (31’5”) and third in the long jump (15’1”). Lyda Buck was second in the pole vault, clearing 8 feet, while Ali Grant had a second-place discus throw of 86’6”, just six inches behind Cazenovia’s Molly Carges (87 feet).
Skaneateles could not repeat this success in the boys meet against Cazenovia, who rose to first place in the league by prevailing 100-41, getting two wins apiece from Alec Boone (100 and 200 sprints) and Jimmy McPherson (mile and 3,200-meter run).
Chase Corcoran still unleashed a big discus throw of 136’9” as Liam Kerrigan, clearing 9’6”, won the pole vault. Nick Paciorek won the only individual race for Skaneateles, going 1:05 flat in the 400 hurdles, while Jon Metz, Ben Kringer, Alex Wulff and Ben Blackwell went 9:30.6 to claim the 4×80 relay.
Not content with the win at Cazenovia, the Skaneatles girls made another big impact Friday during the John Arcaro Classic at Baldwinsville, where it earned 66.5 points to finish fourth among 12 teams, a half-point behind Tully for third place as Fayetteville-Manlius (119 points) and host B’ville (89 points) claimed the top two spots.
Krause, in exactly 13 seconds, edged Peterson (13.06 seconds) as part of a 1-2 finish in the 100 sprint. Then, in the 4×100, Krause and Peterson joined Conan and Grasso as the Lakers dipped under the 50-second mark, winning in 49.91 seconds over B’ville (50.46) and the field.
Campbell nearly won the 100 hurdles, going 15.80 seconds to finish second behind B’ville’s Adrianna Straughter (15.69), while Iles finished seventh. Then, in the 200, Campbell went 26.69 seconds and again was a runner-up to a Bees runner as Lauren Addario won in 26.20 seconds. Grasso finished fourth in 27.27 seconds.
Willcox gained fourth place in the 1,500 in 4:58.18 and, with Campbell, Iles and Sierra Sander, finished fourth in the 4×400 in 4:20.02. Sander impressed with a fifth-place finish in the 400 hurdles in 1:13.36.
In the high jump, Grasso, clearing 4’10”, finished fourth, while Buck cleared 8 feet for fifth place in the pole vault and Edan Howard was eighth in the discus. Condon got sixth place in the 800 in 2:29.44. Maddy Brogan was ninth in the 3,000-meter run and Georgia McSwain was 12th in the 2,000-meter steeplechase.
At the same time, Corcoran was winning the boys discus at the Weedsport Invitational with a throw of 146’7”, nearly 27 feet ahead of any other competitor. Luke Rathgeb earned third place in the 3,200-meter run in 10:16.72 and got fifth place in the mile in 4:50.79.
Nicola Kunz went 1:04.28 to finish seventh in the 400 hurdles, also taking ninth in the 110 hurdles. Wulff (who was eighth in the 800), Kringer, Ben Blackwell and Sam McClintic were fourth in the 4×800 in 9:10.86, with the Lakers eighth in the 4×400 and ninth in the 4×100. Joe Capozza got eighth place in the 200.
