Even with its usual success in its usual places, the Fayettevile-Manlius girls indoor track and field team could not quite get to the top of the standings during Thursday night’s Section III Class AA championships at SRC Arena.
In all, the Hornets gained 93 points, but that trailed Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool as the Northstars, with 129 points, held off the Warriors (117.5 points) for that top spot.
One big surprise took place in the 4×800 relay, an event F-M usually handles. Chloe Bullough, Maddy Duggleby, Lejla Borcilo and Grace Kaercher went nine minutes, 49.79 seconds, but that was second to Liverpool’s winning 9:46.89.
But the Hornets did win the 4×400 earlier in the meet, seeing Duggleby, Susan Bansbach, Samantha Wynn and Fiona Mejico finish in 4:12.55 to hold off C-NS’s second-place 4:13.95. Duggleby got fourth place in the 600-meter run in 1:42.74.
Phoebe White won the 1,000-meter run, her 3:01.98 topping a field that included Claire Walters getting third place in 3:05.61 and Borcilo sixth in 3:11.73. Bansbach was fourth (43.82 seconds) and Mejico fifth (44.60) in the 300, where White false-started.
Walters would win the 1,500-meter run in 4:44.81, with Grace Kaercher third in 4:53.37 and Hannah Kaercher (5:11.85) in sixth place.
Earlier, in the 3,000-meter run, Walters posted 9:58.36, but trailed Liverpool’s Jenna Schulz (9:52.27) as Grace Kaercher was third in 10:25.73 and White fourth in 10:27.74. Hannah Kaercher was sixth and Emily Cook finished eighth.
Pynn, Bansbach, Mejico and Brennan Jolly were fifth in the 4×200 relay in 1:52.61. Wren Usiatynski cleared 7 feet in the pole vault to finish fourth as Isabel Zuber was sixth and Abigail Zuber tied for seventh.
Isabel Zuber, with a triple jump of 34’11 ¼”, beat out Pynn (33’9 ¼”) for fifth place. Zuber also went 15’2 ½” in the long jump to finish sixth as Katie Berge’ cleared 4’4” in the high jump to finish 10th. Lucy Fowler threw the shot put 29’4 ¾” to get sixth place, also taking ninth in the weight throw with 30’1 ¼”.
Meanwhile, in the boys edition of the Class AA sectional meet, F-M had just 41 points, finishing sixth as, here, it was Liverpool (99 points) just ahead of C-NS (96 points) at night’s end.
The lone Hornets victory came in the 55-meter hurdles thanks to Ryan Serp, who in 8.17 seconds beat out C-NS’s Isaiah Wright (8.22 seconds) for the top spot.
Nolan Chiles went 4:27.39 in the mile, less than a second behind the winning 4:26.83 by Liverpool’s Nathan Reeves. Sam Otis got to second place in the 3,200-meter run, his 9:42.05 also trailing Reeves (9:35.14) as Peyton Geehrer was fifth in 9:49.93.
Matt Tripp was fourth in the 1,000 in 2:40.02, with John Meskos sixth in the 600 in 1:31.31. The Hornets were eighth in the 4×200 in 1:41.58, even with Serp racing a leg.
Dan Sokolovic, with a throw of 41’1 ¾”, made it to third place in the shot put, not far behind Liverpool’s Jacob Barnes, who won with 43’5 ¾”. Serp had an eighth-place long jump of 19’2 ¼”.
A day later, Christian Brothers Academy competed in the Class B-2 sectional championships at Utica College’s Hutton Dome, winning three events.
On the boys side, the Brothers’ 4×400 relay quartet of Joel Gaffney, Michael McMahon, Caleb Krueger and Aidan Schimpff went 3:39.28 to hold off Cazenovia (3:41.96) for the victory.
Then CBA won again in the 4×800, with Krueger and Gaffney joined by Zach Medicis and Riley Nash, all of them helping the Brothers prevail in 8:29.70, with Jordan-Elbridge (8:54.89) well back in second place.
And in the girls 1,500-meter run, CBA’s Olivia Morganti was quite impressive, prevailing in 4:39.84 as the nearest finisher, Clinton’s Eva Borton, was more than 17 seconds behind in 4:57.55.
