It’s reached a point where the Cazenovia boys track and field team is poised to go after the same league and Section III honors that the girls side has achieved in recent years.
When the OHSL Liberty Central division-leading Lakers took on Marcellus and Solvay last Monday afternoon, neither match proved close. Cazenovia slammed the Mustangs 102-39 and then routed the Bearcats 124-17.
And this came despite a sweep by Marcellus runner Joe Riccardi of the 800, 1,600 and 3,200-meter runs. Cazenovia won most of the other events, including victories in all three relays.
James McPherson, Ian Marshall, Nick Barna and Joe Gabor got that going when they won the 4×800 in 9:05.26. James Pavelchak, Justin Gagnon, Chad Carges and Jack McNerney claimed the 4×100 in 47.2 seconds as Gabor, Pavelchak, Jacob Olkowski and Cormac Race won the 4×400 in 3:45.8.
Of the six field events, the Lakers took five of them. Carges tossed the shot put 37 feet 7 ¾ inches as Christian Winkler threw the discus 137’6”. Ray Satchwell had a top long jump of 19’ ¾”, with Cameron Killany clearing 10 feet in the pole vault and Dalton Sevier topping 5’6” to win the high jump.
Individually, Pavelchak, in 24.4 seconds, pulled away from Marcellus’ David White (25.4) in the 200-meter dash and went 11.7 seconds to win the 100-meter dash
Olkowski edged Solvay’s Dylon Ewers, 1:04.9 to 1:05.2, in the 400-meter hurdles, while also second in the 110 high hurdles as Olkowski won in 16.6 seconds. McPherson was second in the 3,200 and mile behind Riccardi, with Noah DeRochie second in the 800.
Back in action on Saturday, Cazenovia nearly prevailed at the Cooperstown Don Howard Invitational, earning 83 points to beat everyone in the 13-team field except Oneonta, who won with 85 points.
No one beat the Lakers in the 4×800 as Gabor, Marshall, McPherson and Barna posted a season-best 8:56.81 to edge Oneonta (8:57.20) at the line. A more lopsided 4×100 saw Gagnon, Pavelchak, Slater DeLeon and Sam DeLeon go 46.10 seconds to beat the field by more than two seconds as Cazenovia also finished fifth (3:44.98) in the 4×400.
Winkler threw the discus 140’11”, a close second to Cobleskill-Richmonville’s Tim Dahl, who won with 141’7”. In the pole vault, Sam DeLeon cleared 12 feet, the same as Cherry Valley’s Alex Cronkite, but settled for the runner-up spot as Sevier cleared 5’6” for second place in the high jump.
McPherson, in the 3,200, made it to third place in 10:45.54 after a fourth-place mile of 4:52.51, with DeRochie fifth and Jared Smith sixth in the 3,200. Pavelchak needed 12.04 seconds to finish fifth in the 100 and was seventh in the 200 behind Slater DeLeone (24.67 seconds) in sixth place. Barna was sixth in the 400 sprint (57.50 seconds) and Gabor finished seventh in the 800.
Satchwell got fourth place in the long jump with 19’11”, with Slater DeLeone sixth (17’11”) as Satchwell also nabbed fifth place in the triple jump with 39’9”. Olkowski was fourth (1:04.61) and Gagnon fifth (1:05.93) in the 400 hurdles as Olkowski got sixth place in the 110 hurdles.
