This is a big season for local high school track and field, with Cicero-North Syracuse again serving as the epicenter as it will host, on June 8-9, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.
First, though, there’s quite a slate of Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division meets to go through, which started last Wednesday as C-NS hosted Fayetteville-Manlius and Nottingham, while Liverpool had a big showdown with Baldwinsville and swept it.
The boys Warriors beat the Bees 83-58, taking five of six field events, including a discus where Antwan Kelley threw it 130 feet 3 inches and Jacob Barnes was second with 128’1”. Arthur Bittel had a winning shot put toss of 46 feet.
Ryan Dewan (19’3) and Paul Dewan (18’10”) went 1-2 in the long jump, with Alex Ruston leading another sweep in the triple jump as his 40’6” beat Paul Dewan’s 38’10”. James Gaffney prevailed in the pole vault, clearing 12 feet.
Moving to the track, Nazir Murray won twice, going 15.92 seconds in the 110 high hurdles and needing exactly 58 seconds to dominate the 400 hurdles. Carter Rodriguez, with a time of 4:51.39, beat out Nathan Reeves (4:53.43) to take the mile.
TingRong Shi, in 23.41 seconds, beat out Jahnye Turner (23.86) in the 200-meter dash, but Turner won the 100-meter dash in 11.78 seconds and helped Murray, Paul Dewan and Justin Chrisjohn win the 4×100 relay in 45.05 seconds.
It was the same for the Liverpool girls against B’ville, with the Warriors prevailing 81-60, keyed by its relay teams. Kristina Moore, Claire Carlson, Claudia Brown and Emily Neuner ran the 4×800 in 10:15 flat to prevail as Brown, Amina Sinclair, Anne Gullo and Janae Dewan claimed the 4×100 in 54.15 seconds.
Individually, Gullo edged B’ville’s Lauren Addario, 13.16 seconds to 13.19, to take the 100 sprint. Natalie Kurz (1:14.19) and Mackenzie Mattingly (1:16.40) went 1-2 in the 400 hurdles as Windsor Ardner won the 400 sprint in 1:02.61.
Twice, the Warriors went 1-2 in throwing events, with Sinclair taking the shot put with 33’11” to hold off teammate Abbey Nettle (33’8”) as Nettle unleashed a winning discus throw of 129’9”, with Abeba Haley second.
Sinclair cleared 4’6” in the high jump for second place and Lauren Fradette was second in the triple jump, going 32’4” to go with her second-place finish in the 100 hurdles. Gullo was second in the 100 and Moore second in the 800.
The C-NS boys beat F-M 84-57 and Nottingham 114-27 with five victories from five-time state champion Jeremiah Willis.
All that Willis did was run the 100 in 11.07 seconds, go 59.36 seconds in the 400 hurdles, claim the 200-meter dash in 22.66 seconds and unleash a top long jump of 22 feet ½ inch before getting a triple jump of 44’5”.
Nathan Osborne, clearing 10’6”, edged Jason Hughes (10 feet) in the pole vault, with Judah Bailey clearing 5’10” to match F-M’s Romello Mitchell in the high jump. Andrew DeLore threw the shot put 37’9, just ahead of Andrew Culver’s 37’2”.
Ryan Williams, who was second to Willis in the 200, also got a runner-up finish in the 110 high hurdles in 16.42 seconds as Joe Williams sped to victory in 14.51 seconds.
In the girls meet, C-NS handled Nottingham 118-19, but lost to F-M 79-58, seeing the Hornets’ Sophia Ryan sweep the 800, 1,500 and 3,000-meter runs, the last of them over the Northstars’ Mia Pestle, who was second in the 3,000 in 10:35.29.
All of C-NS’s wins came in field events, with Kierrah Butler throwing the shot put 32’4” and the discus 99’6”. Shayla Webb had a winning triple jump of 35 feet as Alexandra Gaetz cleared 4’8” in the high jump and Catherine Crivelli won the pole vault. Savannah Kur was second (17.50 seconds) to F-M’s Gwenn Shepardson (17.19) in the 100 hurdles.
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