Despite a valiant effort that included 19 season-best performances and one school record, the Cazenovia girls indoor track team fell short of earning another Onondaga High School League Division I title Wednesday night at SRC Arena.
The Lakers finished second to a talented Westhill team, 171-128. The Warriors and Lakers dominated the rest of the Division 1 field, with Marcellus finishing a distant third at 59 points.
Senior Captain Maddy Gavitt led the Laker effort, earning all-league honors in each of her three events and setting a new school record in the triple jump at 35 feet 1 inch.
Gavitt won the triple jump and added a victory in the long jump (15’10 ½”) to claim Cazenovia’s two first team all-league honors and also earned second in the high jump, clearing 4’10” for an additional second team all-league honor.
The Lakers dominated the jumps with Chloe Smith adding a second place finish in the long (15’8”), Lili Gavitt claiming third in the high (4’6”) and Ava Gavitt adding a fifth in the triple with a career-best 30’7”.
Also, Paige Hunt earned second team all-league honors with an 8’6” clearance in the pole vault, with Carley Lounsbury picking up sixth at 7 feet.
Kenzie Yates led the Laker throwers with a 28’5 ¼” personal-best for fourth place in the weight throw. She returned to pick up points in the shot put along with teammate Claire Edwards. In total, Cazenovia edged the Warriors 60-58 in the field events.
Despite a series of personal-best races, it was a different story on the track as Westhill managed to outpace the Lakers at every distance to amass a 113-68 advantage to win the meet.
Lili Gavitt had the day’s best performance, earning second place and second team all-league with a State Qualifier eligible career-best of 9.50 seconds in the 55-meter hurdles. Melanie Michael also ran a personal-best of 9.90 to claim fourth.
Chloe Smith was also successful on the straightaway, earning second place and all-league in the 55-meter dash at 7.69 seconds with Taylor Tilison fifth (8.38). Smith also picked up a point in the 300-meter dash while Ella Huftalen added a personal-best in that race as well.
Molly Hart led the Lakers distance runners, earning second team all-league in the 3,000-meter run with a season-best 11:39.18 followed closely by Clara Rowles in third.
Julia Reff ran her best 1,500 of the season (5:35.22) to claim third while Carley Lounsbury (fourth 3:31.14) and Claire Braaten (fifth, 3:33.99) each ran season-bests to double up in the 1,000. Clara Rowles earned the Lakers’ lone point in the 600 (sixth, 1:51.75) , with a season best effort from Molly Dolan (eighth, 1:52.60).
Cazenovia exceeded its pre-race rankings in all three relays, but fell short of topping the Warriors in any of them as they earned third in each event.
Kaitlyn Puffer, Mia Chesbrough, Grace Dolan and Grace Rajkowski all ran their best times of 2019 for a team best of 4:37.09 in the 4×400. Freshmen Caryn Gagnon (28.9 seconds) and Grace Dolan (29.5) each had personal-bests to pace the 4×200 (1:59.80 overall). Emily Reff and Hope King added season-best legs in the 4×800 to pace the team to a time of 11:14 flat.
After seven straight league titles from 2011 to 2017, this was the second year in a row that the Lakers were topped by Westhill for the championship banner.
Cazenovia will regroup and prepare for the Section III Class B championships this Friday at Utica College. The Lakers have finished first or second in every Class B title contest this decade from 2010 to the present and will try to keep that streak alive.
