With a regular-season league championship in sight, the Cazenovia boys track and field team spent the first Saturday in May earning another important title.
The Lakers beat 11 other teams to take top honors in the Don Howard Invitational at Cooperstown High School, earning 137 points to beat out Tri-Valley (117 points) for first place.
Going 1-2 in the triple jump, the Lakers had Slater DeLeon prevail, going 40 feet 8 inches, with Ray Satchwell second by going 40 1 1/2″. In the long jump, DeLeon finished second with a leap of 20’5 1/4″, again ahead of Satchwell, whose 19’5 1/2″ put him in third place.
Justin Gagnon won the 110 high hurdles, his time of 15.52 seconds edging out Tri Valley’s Thomas VanSanders (15.55) as Satchwell finished sixth in 16.82 seconds .Also Gagnon made it to fourth place in the 400-meter hurdles in 1:00.40, with Connor Wilson (1:05.25) sixth.
DeLeon also got second place in the 200-meter dash in 23.54 seconds as the Lakers dominated the 4×100 relay, its time of 45.89 seconds more than two seconds clear of Little Falls (48.19), with Cazenovia also sixth in the 4×800 relay in 9:30.26.
In the 3,200-meter run, the Lakers’ Noah DeRochie finished second in 10;36.66, with Jared Smith third in 10:39.28 as Smith also finished third in the mile in 4:46.27, ahead of DeRochie (4:53.21) in fifth place. Smith was sixth in the 800-meter run in 2:19.10.
Dalton Seviver cleared 6 feet in the high jump to finish second, with Kyler Hathaway third by topping 5’8″. Angelo Annotto threw the shot put 41’8″ and the discus 122’3″, taking third place in each event. Sam DeLeon was third in the 100-meter dash in 11.84 seconds, with Charles Kubiniec sixth in 12.91 seconds.
With all of that done, Cazenovia turned its attention to Wednesday’s meet against Skaneateles at Buckley-Volo Field. And it didn’t prove close as the host Lakers, by a 107-34 margin, completed a perfect 4-0 run through its OHSL Liberty National division foes.
Cazenovia claimed every field event against Skaneateles, with Satchwell going to the top in the triple jump with a best attempt of 40’2” as he also won the long jump with 19’3 ½”.
Annotto threw the discus 127’6 ½” ahead of Hathaway (105’9 ¾”) to go with a winning shot put toss of 40’ ¼”, while Sevier, second in the long jump (18’2”) and triple jump (39’4”) to Satchwell, topped 6’2” in the high jump to claim that event, and Sam DeLeon dazzled in the pole vault, clearing 11’6” as Sevier topped 11 feet.
Moving to the oval, Sam DeLeon ran the 100 in 11.7 seconds over Jack McNerney (11.9), and the 200 in 24 seconds flat, with Gagnon taking the 110 hurdles in 16.2 seconds over Justin Maxwell (16.4). Jack Aronson ran the 400 sprint in 53.5 seconds, with Connor Race second in 54.8 as Andrew Kent was first in the 800 in 2:07.5.
In the 4×100, Gagnon, DeLeon, Josh Maxwell and Jack McNerney blazed to victory in 46.2 seconds, right before a 4×400 where Satchwell, Aronson, Kent and Race won in 3:48.4.
Elsewhere in this meet, Wilson was second in the 400 hurdles in 1:02.8, with DeRochie second in the mile in 5:00.4 and also a runner-up in the 3,200 in 10:57.5.
More success would follow for Cazenovia at Friday’s Oneida Invitational, where the Lakers, with 74 points, finished second in a 21-team field, trailing only Utica Proctor’s winning total of 96.75 points.
Smith was victorious in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, his time of 10:41.78 edging Rome Free Academy’s Devin McClendon’s 10:42 flat as DeRochie finished fourth.
Satchwell won, too, his triple jump of 43’1” more than a foot ahead of the field, while Sevier cleared 6’2” for second place in the high jump and Austin Sanders was fourth (5’10”), Sevier also third in the pole vault by clearing 10’6”.
Gagnon was second in the 400 hurdles in 1:02.25 to Camden’s Josh Mayden (1:01.65) and took third place in the 110 hurdles in 16.10 seconds.
Annotto notched a second-place discus throw of 127’3”, just behind the 128’11” from Jamesville-DeWitt’ James Richer, with Kent third in the 800 in 2:06.04 and Aronson fifth in the 400 sprint in 54.21 seconds.
