Girls indoor track and field athletes from West Genesee, Solvay and Westhill are all bound for Staten Island’s Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex on March 3 to take part in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.
This was a result of several wins attained during Sunday’s Section III state qualifying meet, held at SRC Arena, pushed back because other sectional championship meets had to be moved due to winter storms.
WG’s Carly Benson won a tense duel with Jamesville-DeWitt’s Ana Dieroff in the 600-meter run. In a time of one minute, 38.17 seconds, Benson edged Dieroff (1:38.21) by four-hundredths of a second
Also, the Wildcats were victorious in the 4×400 relay, where Megan Delia, Kelsey Fox, Abby Kuppinger and Caitlin Mills went 4:11.23 to hold off Liverpool (4:11.93) for the top spot.
Solvay’s Ashley Bosco continued to dazzle in the shot put. She set a new personal record in the event, throwing it 42 feet 10 ½ inches to beat out Rome Free Academy’s Sarah Crockett, who was second with 40’ ½”.
Later, in the weight throw, Bosco took fifth place with a heave of exactly 38 feet as teammate Sabrina Garnett was sixth with 35’9 ¾” and Westhill’s Bella Lavigne (34’3 ½”) was eighth.
Westhill’s Noelle Coolican qualified for the state meet in the pole vault, clearing 9’6”, the same height as Tully’s Mackenzie Delles. Ashley Heffernan was fourth with 9 feet and Bishop Ludden’s Sarah Thompson cleared 8 feet to finish sixth.
The Warriors’ Alyssa Holstein finished fourth in the 55-meter hurdles in 9.25 seconds after qualifying for the final in 9.21 seconds.
In the triple jump, Delia was ninth with 35’1” as Bishop Ludden had Zoe Fortin take 12th place with 33’ ½”, with Fortin also getting 14th place in the long jump with 15’9 ¼”.
Moving to the boys sectional state qualifier, West Genesee’s Esisas Brumfield went 37.67 seconds in the 300-meter dash, third behind the J-D tandem of David Fikhman (36.04) and Mike Potamianos (37.20).
Westhill’s Tom Howard was right behind Brumfield, finishing fourth in the 300 in 37.85 seconds, and also ran the 55-meter dash in 6.98 seconds, unable to reach the final. Evan Watt was 13th in the 55-meter hurdles in 8.71 seconds.
WG also had Paul Stannard finish fourth in the 600 in 1:27.60 as Brumfield, Griffin Dombroske, Jakob Petrocci and Brian Mirabito were fourth in the 4×200 relay in 1:36.64. Dombroske was sixth in the triple jump, going 41’5 ½”.
Evan Watt gave Westhill a sixth-place finish in the pole vault, clearing 12 feet as Central Square star Joe Webb matched his own sectional record, topping 15’3”.
