A season full of improvement and striving for the West Genesee boys indoor track and field team’s 4×200 relay was fulfilled in less than two minutes.
To be more precise, it was one minute, 34.75 seconds that the Wildcats required to finish second in Wednesday night’s Section III state qualifying meet at Utica College’s Hutton Dome.
That was quick enough to send WG to Staten Island’s Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex on March 2 to take part in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.
The Wildcats’ quartet of Dan Gill, Esisas Brumfield, Jakob Petrocci and Patrick Peris needed to go 1:34.94 to get to that state meet, and beat it by 0.19 seconds as it was runner-up to Utica Proctor’s winning 1:32.54.
Gill, in 6.751 seconds, edged out Brumfield (6.752) for fifth place in the 55-meter dash, with Brumfield 11th in the 300-meter dash.
Westhill had Evan Ballard take seventh place in the weight throw with 48 feet 5 inches and eighth place in the shot put with a toss of 41’ ¼” as Mike Ferrara was sixth in the 600-meter run in 1:29.99. Jordan-Elbridge saw Sean Dristle gain sixth place in the mile in 10:27.63.
In the girls sectional state qualifier, Westhill, the newly-crowned sectional Class B-1 champions, had Ashley Heffernan take fourth place in the 55-meter hurdles in 9.03 seconds after going 9.36 to qualify for the finals.
Heffernan also was fifth in the pole vault, clearing 9 feet as Ella Markham (8 feet) was 11th. Lennah Abraham had a fifth-place weight throw of 36’4 ½” as Brigid Heinrich finished 12th with 29’8”.
In the 4×400 relay, the Warriors had Ashley Mesa-Espinosa, Katherine Evans, Lauren Bendall and Ashley Bolesh get fourth place in 4:19.04, with Marcellus having Alaura Cushman, Emma Holzwarth, Caroline Trytek and Delaney Manahan finish sixth in 4:24.19.
Mesa-Espinosa finished seventh in the 300 in 43.53 seconds, with West Genesee’s Abby Kuppinger eighth in the 600-meter run in 1:50.66. Kuppinger, Sandy Gardino, Caitlin Mills and Mia Mitchell were fifth in the 4×200 in 1:52.68.
Solvay had Isabella Lambert take 10th place in the triple jump with 33’1”, three spots ahead of Bolesh (32’4”). The Bearcats’ Sabrina Garnett was 10th in the weight throw, heaving it 32’6”.
