Though only a junior, Cicero-North Syracuse’s Jeremiah Willis is starting to pile up state championships.
With his pair of victories in Saturday’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association indoor track and field meet at Staten Island’s Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex, Willis brought his state championship total to four.
Last June, in the NYSPHSAA outdoor track meet, Willis prevailed on the Federation side in both the long jump and triple jump. Here, he got a clean sweep of the state public and Federation crowns in those same events.
The triple jump saw Willis set a Section III record on his second attempt, going 49 feet 5 3/4 inches, and then nearly match that mark with 49’5 1/2″ on his fourth try.
By then, Willis had already put up the winning mark, having finished nearly two feet ahead of Harrison’s Robert Blue, who was second with 47’9 3/4″. Liverpool had Paul Dewan take 20th place with 42’3 1/4″.
Moving to the long jump, Wilils was trailing when, on his third and final attempt, he went 22’10”, which pushed him past Greece Olympia’s Josh McCleary, who settled for second place with 22’6 3/4″.
As if all this wasn’t enough, Willis medaled in the 55-meter dash, qualifying for the final in 6.48 seconds and improving to 6.46 seconds to get on the podium. Taft Educational’s Carlon Hosten, from the Bronx, won in 6.35 seconds.
Joe Williams added to the C-NS medal total in the 55-meter hurdles. Going 7.52 seconds in the qualifying round, Williams improved to 7.42 seconds in the final for third place as Sullivan West’s Michael Mullally, in 7.38 seconds, grabbed the top spot.
And in the girls NYSPHSAA meet, Northstars senior Mia Pestle grabbed the runner-up spot in the 1,500-meter run. In a time of 4:38.31, Pestle edged Camden’s Elizabeth Lucason (4:38.95) for second place, everyone chasing North Rockland superstar Katelyn Tuohy, who won in a state meet-record 4:23.38.
Marissa Baskin gave Liverpool an eighth-place finish in the triple jump, going 36’2 3/4″ to go with her 17th-place long jump of 16’5 1/4″. Danielle Marsell was 19th in the weight throw with a toss of 41’5″ as Trinity Gray got 26th place and C-NS’s Liliana Klemanski cleared 5 feet in the long jump to tie for 16th.
Liverpool’s Nazir Murray finished 24th in the boys 55 hurdles in 8.26 seconds. Elsewhere for the Warriors, Antwan Kelly was 15th in the weight throw, going 57’9 3/4″, while Nathan Reeves was 18th in the mile in 4:26.40. Reeves, T.J. Praschunus, Spencer Ruediger and Cameron O’Connell were 16th in the 4×800 relay in 8:23.10.
