Each of the West Genesee track and field teams would begin their most important stretch of the season by competing in last Thursday’s Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division championships at Liverpool High School Stadium.
The girls Wildcats picked up 72 points and landed in fifth place as Fayetteville-Manlius (154.5 points) prevailed. WG’s boys also were fifth, getting 58 points as Cicero-North Syracuse (157 points) won there.
A victory for WG’s girls came in the 4×100 relay, where Caitlin Mills, Megan Delia, Amina Mambambu and Sandy Gardino went 50.55 seconds to edge Corcoran (50.66) for the top spot.
Twice, WG finished second to F-M in relays. In the 4×800, Emily Young, Mia Mitchell, Faith Knox and Natalie Buckhout went 9:36.18 behind the Hornets’ 9:29.69 as, in the 4×400, Young, Abby Kuppinger, Mikeayla DeJesus and Kelsey Fox went 4:07.31 to F-M’s winning time of 4:02.11.
Carly Benson went 2:19.10 in the 800-meter run, second to F-M’s Phoebe White (2:16.59). Fox, in the pole vault, cleared 8 feet, second to Baldwinsville’s Maya Hewitt, who topped 8’6”. Fox also finished eighth in the long jump, with Phoebe Anderson 11th.
Mills went 12.75 seconds to finish third in the 100-meter dash, with Kuppinger third in the 400-meter dash in 1:01.27. Young got fourth place in the 1,500-meter run in 4:53.14.
Mills was fifth (1:13.79) and Madalyn Benson sixth (1:13.99) in the 400 hurdles, while Mambambu got sixth place in the 200-meter dash in 27.61 seconds and Knox was fifth in the 3,000-meter run in 11:08.73, with Buckhout seventh.
Julia Logana, throwing the shot put 27’11 ¼”, edged teammate Etana Davis (27’6 ¾”) for fourth place. Katie Graziano finished fifth in the pentathlon, with Olivia Becker seventh and Madalyn Benson 10th in the 100 hurdles. Davis was 10th in the discus.
WG’s best finish in a single event was in the discus, where Griffin Dombroske unleashed a triple jump of 42’3 ¾”, beating everyone except C-NS multiple state champion Jeremiah Willis, who won with 45’10” as David Pinker finished ninth.
David Wenner made a strong push in the pentathlon, his total of 2,613 points putting Wenner second behind Baldwinsville’s Nate Jaquint, who won with 2,944 points. Chris McAfee had a third-place shot put toss of 45’1”, with Cole Nowark (39’11”) seventh as McAfee also was sixth in the discus, heaving it 107’9”.
Dan Gill got fourth place in the 100 in 11.41 seconds, beating out Esisas Brumfield (11.61) in fifth place, but Brumfield improved to fourth place in the 200 in 23.46 seconds, with Gill seventh.
Gill, Brumfield, Jakob Petrocci and Brian Mirabito were third in the 4×100 in 45.44 seconds. In the 4×100, Dombroske, Ryan Allen, Paul Stannard and Sean Byrnes were third in 3:34.82. Byrnes also took sixth (10:41.85) in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Pinker, Tony Gettino, Matt Bartolotta and Joe Parisi were fifth (9:01.76) in the 4×800, Bartolotta adding a fifth (10:15.78) in the 3,200-meter run.
Allen got fifth place in the 800 in 2:05 flat, with Kyle Jenkins sixth in 2:06.65. Dombroske was fifth in the 400 sprint in 52.11 seconds, with Stannard seventh.
Marcus Body cleared 9 feet in the pole vault for sixth place, with Noah Uczen eighth. Nathan Couse finished seventh in the mile in 4:38.51. Frank DePalma had a ninth-place long jump of 19 feet.
WG’s girls track team would compete in the 78th annual Eddy Meet at Schenectady on Saturday, where Young, in 2:14.25, was a close second to Shenendehowa’s Hannah Reale (2:13.67) in the 800. Carly Benson was third in the 1,500 in 4:36.42 as Tully’s Broke Rauber won in 4:28.87 over South Lewis star Hanna Ielfield (4:30.28).
