Mia Grasso continued her season-long tear for the Skaneateles girls track and field team, leading them to a second-place finish in Wednesday’s Onondaga High School League Liberty American division championships at Marcellus.
It proved a Laker duel at the top, with Skaneateles accumulating 125 points, topping every team except Cazenovia, who went to the top by earning 172 points.
In her specialty, the 400-meter dash, Grasso won in 58.69 seconds, more than five seconds ahead of the field as Melissa Biver got fifth place in 1:06.75. A 1-2 sweep in the 200-meter dash followed as Grasso went 26.67 seconds and Maddie Peterson got second place in 27.57 seconds.
Moving to the 4×400 relay, Grasso, Peterson, Biver and Brady Iles roared to victory in 4:16.35, nearly six seconds ahead of runner-up Hannibal (4:22.41), while in the high jump Grasso cleared 4 feet 8 inches to tie for third place.
Iles was victorious in the 100-meter hurdles as her time of 17.09 beat Cazenovia’s Maddy Gavitt (18.13) by more than a second, with Bella Capozza in 10th place.
Again, the Lakers prevailed in the 4×100, seeing Maddie Peterson, Emme Conan, Graeson Landsberg and Eva Vitsaxaki go 52.49 seconds to hold off Institute of Technology Central (53.15 seconds) for the victory.
Lyda Buck, who was fifth in the high jump, cleared 8 feet in the pole vault, second to Hannibal’s Myah Samford, who won with 8’6” as Sophia Casler was sixth with 7 feet. Sharla Dart had a second-place shot put toss of 29’7 ½” as Edan Howard (24’10”) was sixth, the same finish she had in the discus ahead of Sarah Brennan in seventh place.
Peterson, in 13.55 seconds, was runner-up to ITC’s Fannie Kumeh (12.98) in the 100-meter dash as Conan was fourth in 13.64 seconds. Natalie Condon was fourth in the 1,500-meter run in 5:14.07 and also took fourth (11:35.06) in the 3,000-meter run.
Hope Cross-Jaya, Nicole Derosa, Georgia McSwain and Liliana Arias went to third place in the 4×800 relay in 11:24.68. McSwain was fourth in the 2,000-meter steeplechase in 8:15.94 and Arias was sixth as Cross-Jaya was fifth in the 800-meter run in 2:36.46. Vitsaxaki was ninth in the long jump, just behind Emma Miller (13’9 ¼”) in eighth place.
Meanwhile, the Skaneateles boys track team earned 37 points in its portion of the OHSL Liberty American meet, led by Brahm Malcolm, who won the 110 high hurdles in 16.16 seconds over a field that included teammate Nicola Kunz, who was fourth in 17.49 seconds.
Luke Rathgeb ran to fourth place in the mile in 4:56.12, with Matt Persampieri 11th in 5:21.84. Persampieri, Joe Norris, Nate Azzam and Caleb Bender were fourth in the 4×800 relay in 9:27.54 as Norris (2:15.21) edged Bender (2:15.37) for fifth place in the 800.
Matt Leveroni, Kevin Gou, Sam McClintic and Jon Metz were fifth in the 4×100 in 49.54 seconds. Leveroni was fifth in the 200 in 24.91 seconds, with Metz 11th, as Leveroni got seventh place in the 100 sprint in 12.36 seconds, with Gou 12th in 12.75 seconds.
Norris, Bender, Azzam and Josh Reed were fifth in the 4×400 in 4:04.91. Kunz and Malcolm tied for eighth in the high jump, each clearing 5’2”.
Ryan Willcox was ninth in the long jump with 18’ ¼” and Gou in 12th place as Willcox and Levi Carvalho were ninth and 10th, respectively, in the 400 sprint, with Ben Euto ninth in the shot put and 12th in the discus.
