For all of those track and field athletes who didn’t leave town last week, a chance to compete was offered during Tuesday’s Westhill Spring Break Invitational, and they didn’t waste that chance.
Not only did host Westhill take part, so did West Genesee, Jordan-Elbridge and Solvay, each of them finding varying degrees of success and plenty of victories, too.
WG’s Carly Benson dominated the girls 1,500-meter run, her time of four minutes, 51.53 seconds enough to pull away from Clinton’s Madison Luke (4:59.36) and the field. Faith Knox was eighth, behind Westhill’s Liz Kessler in seventh place.
Emily Young gave the Wildcats a win in the 800-meter run in 2:22.07, more than six seconds ahead of the field as Abby Kuppinger was sixth in 2:36.68 and Mikayla DeJesus was ninth.
Caitlin Mills took third place in the 100-meter dash in 13.14 seconds, while Amina Mambambu was sixth in 13.41 seconds and Sandy Gardino was eighth. Kelsey Fox had a third-place long jump of 15’7”.
Mia Mitchell took sixth place in the 2,000-meter steeplechase, with Fox sixth in the 200-meter dash and Mamambu in eighth place. Mitchell, Benson, Young and Liz Morey were third in the 4×400 relay in 4:28.20.
For the WG boys team, its lone win on the track came in the 4×400, Brian Morabito, Ryan Allen, Pat Peris and Paul Stannard posted 3:38.58 as Jordan-Elbridge had Ethan Kinney, Marion Quigley, Logan Kinney and Mike Bennick finished third in 3:42.40.
WG went 1-2 in the boys shot put, where Chris McAfee had a winning throw of 43’10” and Cole Nowark was second with 41’6 ¼”. Then Griffin Dombroske prevailed in the triple jump, going 40’9” to edge Carthage’s Tashod Wingfield (40’7”) .
Paul Stannard, 2:08.40, was second in the 800 as Kyle Jenkins finished third in 2:09.83 and Sean Byrnes (2:12.43) was sixth. Matt Bartolotta finished third in the mile in 4:45.89, with Nathan Couse fourth in 4:49.98 as Ryan Allen, Patrick Trivison and Tony Gettino also recording top-11 finishes.
The Westhill girls saw Alyssa Holstein, Quinn Mannion and Lauren Holstein claim the 3×100 hurdles shuttle event, prevailing in 52.03 seconds over Jamesville-Dewitt (53.23) as WG finished third in 54.70 seconds.
Noelle Coolican contended in the pole vault, clearing 9’6” to finish second to South Jefferson’s Marlena Jacobs, who topped 10’6” as Quinn Mannion (7’6”) was sixth.Abby Feyerabend cleared 4’10” in the high jump and took third place.
Westhill also had Haylei Coolican finish second in the 2,000 steeplecahse in 7:55.05 behind Tully star Brooke Rauber, who posted 7:05.65. Liz Kessler, Mackenzie Powers, Katherine Evans and Ashley Bolesh were fourth in the 4×400 in 4:32.43.
Ashley Heffernan was fifth in the long jump, going 15’3”. Kayla Helfeld was fourth and Lennah Abraham sixth in the shot put. Abraham added a fifth-place finish in the discus as Bolesh was fifth in the triple jump.
On the boys end for Westhill, Brendan Rewakowski climbed to second place in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10:54.99, with WG’s Jack Richards fifth in 11:40.57 and teammate Sean Byrnes seventh.
Moving to the boys end for Westhill, Tom Howard beat the field in the 100 sprint, his time of 11.273 seconds edging out J-D’s David Fikhman (11.277) as WG had Dan Gill finish fourth in 11.59 seconds and Esisas Brumfield finished eighth.
Howard, in 22.53 seconds, was second to Fikhman (22.28) in the 200 sprint, with Brumfield fifth in 23.80 seconds and J-E getting Ethan Kinney to finish sixth in 23.94 seconds.
The Warriors also had Cade Van Ornam get fourth place in the 800 in 2:10.56 and Ben Eassa finish fourth in the triple jump, going 39’10”. Jacob Fricano take sixth place in the mile in 4:51.82. J-E’s Kenny Williams finished ninth in 4:55.68. Evan Ballard was fourth in the discus with a throw of 108’9”.
J-E’s best finish came in the high jump, where Jon Sparks cleared 6 feet, trailing only Bishop Grimes’ Nate Gay. Quigley, who was sixth in the high jump, got fifth place in the long jump, going 19’6” to edge Dombroske (19’4”) in sixth place. J-E also had Kyler Langhorn get seventh place in the triple jump and Nate Jennings seventh in the pole vault.
Solvay’s Ashley Bosco was victorious in the girls shot put with a throw of 39’4 ½” and also was fourth in the discus, while Shane Spinner was fifth in the boys discus with 108’8”. Kyra Crossett got fifth place in the girls high jump, clearing 4’6”.
Jaimen Bliss was third in the boys triple jump, going 40’3”. The girls Bearcars were sixth in the 4×400 in 4:37.44 as Jordyn Willsey, Zoe Francemone, Katlyn Skellington and Serenity Thomas took part.
