It all ended well for the Westhill girls track and field team as it held off Camden to earn the Section III Class B-1 championship Thursday at Chittenango High School.
With 110 points, the Warriors finished just ahead of the Blue Devils’ second-place total of 104 points as the Westhill boys finished third with 97 points behind host Chittenango and Camden.
In one event, the 100-meter hurdles, Westhill’s girls got 20 points as Ashley Heffernan won in 16.11 seconds, with Lauren Holstein third in 17.46 seconds and Lauren Marshall (17.61) in fourth place.
Heffernan got second place in the pole vault, clearing 9 feet 6 inches, and went on to finish third in the long jump, going 16’2 ¾” as Ashley Bolesh was sixth with 15’4 ½”.
Another key win came in the 4×100 relay, where Heffernan, Katherine Evans, Erica Gangemi and Angie Mesa-Espinosa claimed a thriller over Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, edging the Red Devils by one-hundredth of a second, 51.95 seconds to 51.96. Evans also finished sixth in the 800-meter run in 2:37.09.
Just as important was the Warriors taking the 4×400 relay late in the meet. Mesa-Espinosa, Evans, Bolesh and Lauren Bendall went 4:12.07 to edge South Jefferson (4:12.30) as Camden settled for third place.
Mesa-Espinosa got to second place in the 100-meter dash in 12.81 seconds behind Syracuse ITC’s Fannie Kumeh (12.60), also nearly winning the 200-meter dash as her 26.19 seconds trailed Camden’s Mackenzie Mix (26.18) by one-hundredth of a second.
Lennah Abraham was second in the discus, throwing it 112’1”, and added a sixth-place shot put toss of 30’4”. Brigid Heinrich was fifth in the discus with 89’4”.
Bolesh was fourth in the 400-meter dash in 1:00.36, while Bendall needed 1:11.54 to finish third in the 400 hurdles and was sixth in the pole vault, topping 8 feet. Margaret Hunt, clearing 4’8”, claimed third place in the high jump.
Kaylin Battista, with 1,994 points, was fourth in the pentathlon, ahead of Quinn Mannion (1,876) in fifth place. The Warriors also finished fourth in the 4×800 relay in 10:32.96.
For the Westhill boys, the most success came from field events such as the shot put, which Evan Ballard won by throwing it 45’ ½” as Ben Helfeld was third with 43’11 ½” and Charlie Doebert (40’10 ½”) was fifth.
Ballard swept both throwing contests as his discus throw of 122’11” edged Camden’s Jon Smith (121’7”), with Doebert getting third place by heaving it 115’11” and Helfeld fourth with 115’9”.
Elliott Rouse cleared 5’10” in the high jump and gained second place,
Dan Washburn was victorious in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, going 10:27.5 to beat the field by nearly half a minute as Scott MacBain finished eighth in 11:47.1.MacBain, Jacob Fricano, Brian Kenny and Brendan Rewakowski were second in the 4×800 in 8:37.24.
Tom Howard got third place in the 100 sprint in 11.63 seconds, added a third in the 200- in 23.03 seconds and helped the Warriors take third place in the 4×100 relay in 45.90 seconds.
Washburn had a fourth-place mile of 4:34.49 as Westhill finished fifth in the 4×400 in 3:46.52. Andrew Centore was fifth in the triple jump, going 39’11 ¼”.
Luke Kelly was fourth in the pentathlon with 2,246 points as Michael Savage (1,872) was sixth. Will Remillard was sixth in the 400 hurdles in 1:04.39, with Will Thornton sixth in the 800 in 2:04.82.
Solvay tied Oneida and Christian Brothers Academy for sixth place in the boys sectional B-1 meet with 33 points, including a victory for Brendon Carolina in the long jump as he went 20’9 ½” to beat Oneida’s Zander Farr (20’6”) for the top spot.
Carolina, X’Zavier Morris, Allen Cawthon and Elijah Wright were second (45.77 seconds) to Camden (45.38) in the 4×100 as Justice Shirley was fourth in the high jump, clearing 5’8”.
Carolina was fourth in the 100 in 11.68 seconds, with Cawthon (11.73) sixth as he also got eighth place in the 400 sprint. Michael Pellizzari was fifth in the discus with a throw of 115’8”.
The Solvay girls had 14.5 points, most of them from Kyra Crossett winning the high jump by clearing 4’10” as Allison Dooher tied for fifth and Erica Bagozzi was fifth (8’6”) in the pole vault.
