Regardless of where it finished in the team standings, each of the West Genesee track and field sides had reason to feel proud at the end of Wednesday’s Section III Class AA championships at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium.
This was especially true of Carly Benson, who in the girls 3,000-meter run moved to the front and, in a time of 10 minutes, 2.23 seconds, set a new school record while defeating Fayetteville-Manlius’ Claire Walters (10:09.46) by more than seven seconds.
Four days earlier, Benson had broken the school mark in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:36.42 at the Eddy Games in Schenectady. She didn’t run in the 1,500 here, but Emily Young did and finished fifth in 4:55.12.
The girls Wildcats had 48 points to finish seventh in the team standings, which included runner-up finishes in all three relays.
In the 4×800, Benson, Young, Mia Mitchell and Lauren Puchta posted 9:50.60 behind F-M’s 9:22.55. Then Caitlin Mills, Sandy Gardino, Megan Delia and Amina Mambambu went 50.37 seconds in the 4×100, with only Corcoran (50.20) topping them.
To cap this off, in the 4×400 Benson and Young, joined by Abby Kuppinger and Kelsey Fox, finished in 4:07.28, but F-M won here, too, with a time of 4:01.54.
Mills, on her own, finished third in the 100-meter dash in 12.80 seconds as Liverpool’s Marissa Baskin (12.61) prevailed, with Mills seventh in the high jump, clearing 4’8”.Kuppinger was third in the 400-meter dash in 1:01.59 as Mikealya DeJesus (1:03.99) was seventh.
Delia was eighth (1:13.90) and Madalyn Benson ninth (1:15.45) in the 400 hurdles, with Natalie Buckhout eighth and Faith Knox ninth in the 3,000 behind Carly Benson. Fox tied for seventh in the pole vault, clearing 7 feet, while Etana Davis was ninth in the discus and Julia Logana was 10th in the shot put.
WG’s boys team also got seventh place, but only had 34 points, helped in the throwing events by Chris McAfee tossing the shot put 44’10 ¼” and rising to third place.
Dan Gill went 11.29 seconds in the 100 to get fourth place as Esisas Brumfield was eighth in 11.66 seconds, with Gill sixth in the 200 in 23.77 seconds. In the 400 sprint, Griffin Dombroske got fourth place in 52.47 seconds, edging Paul Stannard (52.55) for that spot.
Dombroske went 42’7” in the triple jump to finish fourth. Stannard and Dombroske paired with Ryan Allen and David Pinker as WG got fourth place in the 4×400 in 3:33.16. Matt Bartolotta, in 10:11.66, earned fifth place in the 3,200-meter run.
Gill, Frank DePalma, Jakob Petrocci and Brian Mirabito were sixth in the 4×100 in 45.74 seconds as Sean Byrnes was sixth in the 400 hurdles in 1:01.84 and then took sixth place in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10:40.55.
David Wenner had a fourth-place finish in the pentathlon with 2,622 points. WG was eighth in the 4×800 in 9:08.78 as Nathan Couse got ninth place in the mile in 4:43.78 and Allen was ninth in the 800.
