Each of the Fayetteville-Manlius track and field teams would have a large presence during last Wednesday’s Section III Class AA champions at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium.
And the girls Hornets would finish with 104 points, second only to Liverpool’s winning total of 183 points, while the F-M boys only had 34 points and were seventh in a 10-team field as Liverpool won there, too.
Susan Bansbach featured prominently for the F-M girls, lowering her top time to 57.61 seconds in the 400-meter dash, this after she had helped Claire Walters, Maddy Duggleby and Libbie Kirkpatrick win the 4×800 relay in 9:20.45, half a minute ahead of the field.
Phoebe White ran away from the field in the 800-meter run, prevailing in 2:19.66 after she was second (4:48.85) to Liverpool’s Jenna Schulz (4:39.19) in the 1,500-meter run, where Chloe Bullough finished sixth.
Claire Walters took her turn at the top in the 3,000-meter run, going 9:56.67 as Grace Kaercher (10:26.59) beat Hannah Kaercher (10:29.28) for third place and Emily Cook was eighth.Duggleby was fourth in the 800 in 2:25.69, with Kirkpatrick (2:27.26) in sixth place.
It was White and Bansbach, paired with Fiona Mejico and Bella Millitti, that went 4:01.54 in the 4×400 relay to beat the field by more than eight seconds. Mejico also got third place in the 400 hurdles in 1:07.74.
Another win for F-M came from Katie Berge’, who earned 2,150 points in the pentathlon to beat C-NS’s Lexi Gaetz by 140 points as Hannah Kaczorowski finished fifth with 1,828 points. Ani Sydorowych was fourth in the 2,000 steeplechase in 7:47.30.
In field events, the Hornets’ Harper Stoppacher cleared 4’10” in the high jump for fifth place, with Wren Usiatynski third in the pole vaul by clearing 7’6”. Samantha Pynn was seventh in the long jump, going 16’8”, and got an eighth-place triple jump of 32’2 ½”.
On the boys side, F-M had Nolan Chiles run a fine mile of 4:24.73, second only to the 4:23.23 from Liverpool’s Nathan Reeves as Sam Otis got fourth place in 4:29.12. Yakob Kelley was second in the 3,200-meter run in 9:54.81.
Dan Sokolovic threw the shot put 44’2 ¾” to finish third, with Sawyer Dereszynski unleashing a fifth-place discus throw of 119’7”. Ryan Serp gained fourth place in the 110 high hurdles in 16.03 seconds.
Jason Cavanagh, in 1:02.66, beat out Owen Snyder (1:03.80) for sixth place in the 400 hurdles. John Meskos got seventh place in the 800 as the Hornets were sixth in the 4×400 (3:40.52) and eighth in the 4×100 in 46.73 seconds.
Four days earlier, C-NS hosted its annual invitational meet. F-M didn’t compete, but East Syracuse Minoa and Christian Brothers Academy did, tuning up for their sectional meets.
ESM’s girls took fourth place in an 18-team field with 32 points, 10 of them coming from Maria Markert, who in the pole vault cleared 9 feet as no one else could top 8 feet.
Rachael Ladd was second in the 3,000 in 11:19.43 and added a fifth-place time of 8:16.82 in the steeplechase, giving the Spartans 10 more points. Mary Roach finished fifth in the 3,000.
Jennah Ferrari and Rhianna Butchko tied for fourth in the high jump, both clearing 4’10”. Rylie King got sixth place in the 100 sprint in 13.69 seconds and also was sixth (27.98 seconds) in the 200. Aryanna Finkelstein threw the shot put 30 feet to finish fifth, with Sophia Jackson eighth in the shot put and discus.
CBA had Riley Nash get fifth place in the 3,000 in 10:23.45, while Bri Pucci finished sixth in the 1,500 in 5:26.33. Beatrice Gugol had a sixth-place triple jump of 32’3”.
As for the ESM boys, who were just two days removed from a victory in the SCAC Empire division championships on May 16, Elijah Buck won again in the discus, his throw of 133’10” one inch better than Liverpool’s Jacob Barnes (133’9”).
Buck also got fifth place in the shot put with 42’2”. Myles Riggins was third in the 110 hurdles in 15.80 seconds, while Rocky El (16.32) was sixth, to go with a sixth in the triple jump (40 feet) as Bishop Grimes’ Nate Gay was fourth in the long jump with 20’ ½”.
The CBA boys earned a victory when Joel Gaffney ran the 800 under two minutes, his time of 1:59.35 beating out, among others, teammate Caleb Krueger, who was fourth in 2:01.92. was seventh in the 4×800 in 10:32.70.
