SYRACUSE – It was quite a way to start.
The Marcellus boys indoor track and field team earned 79 points and emerged victorious from last Wednesday’s first portion of the Jack Morse Kickoff Meet at SRC Arena. A day later, Westhill won the second portion of the girls Morse meet with 78.5 points to the 70.5 from runner-up Jamesville-DeWitt.
In an 11-team field that included West Genesee and Skaneateles, the Mustangs easily beat out the 65 points earned by runner-up Cazenovia, with the Wildcats getting 37 points and the Lakers just 13 points.
The Mustangs, in the 4×200 relay, had Ryan Constable, Joe Striffler and Colin Bertsch go 1:41.63 for second place to Liverpool’s 1:40.73. Marcellus added a fourth in the sprint medley relay.
Peter McCaffrey had a second-place triple jump of 41’6 ¼”, with Striffler third by going 38’4 ¼”. Later, McCaffrey tied for fourth in the high jump, clearing 5’3” as Andrew McCaffrey had a second-place pole vault of 8 feet, ahead of Skaneateles’ Alex Moro (7’6”) in fourth place.
Herr went 6.89 seconds in the 55-meter dash for third place as WG’s Dom Burris was second in 6.81. Mason Grieb was fifth in the 55-meter hurdles in 8.94 seconds, with Lukas Grieb eighth.
WG won the 4×800 relay, where Peter McMahon, Kevin Moser, Alex Puchta and Dylan Crockett won in 9:12.78, well clear of a field where Marcellus (9:48.56) edged Skaneateles (9:48.68) for fourth place. McMahon was also victorious in the 1,600-meter run, pulling away for a top time of 4:30.12 as Marcellus had Caeden Cox fourth.
Right after, in the 4×400, the Wildcats won again, with Chris Moser, Payton Manipole, Anthony Edgar and Bryce Bort going 3:43.90. Marcellus was fifth in 4:00.69.
Bryce Bort, with a long jump of 19’7 ½”, and Dom Burris, going 19’6”, were second and third, respectively, in the long jump as Marcellus had Peter McCaffrey fourth with 19’1 ½” and Ian Potter sixth.
Meanwhile, in the girls Morse meet Marcellus finished fourth with 42 points, while WG had 32.5 points and Skaneateles gained 13 points.
WG’s team of Karolina Lata, Claire Griffin, Peyton Long and Chloe Fietze rose to second place in the 4×800 in 10:56.85, just ahead of Marcellus (11:07.83) in third place. Natalie Keiling was fourth in the 55 sprint in 7.93 seconds.
Kyla Palmer, Grace Conan, Lillian Coleman and Caroline Wells put the Lakers second in the 4×400 in 4:38.14, with WG fourth in 4:41.99.
That same Skaneateles quartet was second (1:58.57) to Cicero-North Syracuse (1:57.18) in the 4×200, where the Wildcats (2:00.13) were fourth.
Marcellus also had Heidi Steigerwald record a third-place high jump of 4’10. The Mustangs took fourth in the 4×400 in 4:22.70 as the Lakers’ Rory Comer was third in the long jump, going 14’ ½. Hailey Satter was third in the pole vault with 6 feet, with Marcellus teammate Olivia Smolen unleashing a weight throw of 27 feet for fifth place.
When it was Westhill’s turn on Thursday, the girls began to assert its control when Angie Mesa took the 55 sprint in 7.72 seconds to edge Syracuse ITC’s Coralis Diaz (7.82). Ashley Bolesh was impressive, too, unleashing a top triple jump of 34’10 ¼” as everyone else jumped less than 31 feet.
Mesa, Bolesh, Elle Herrera and Kate Bendall paired up to win the 4×200 in 1:50.91, nearly six seconds ahead of the field, with Karly Dillabough, Olivia Holowinski, Kennedy Rose and Ella Thornton pairing up to win the sprint medley in 5:14.36, edging Oswego’s 5:14.73.
Herrera was second in the 55 hurdles in 10.68 seconds. The Warriors were third in the 4×400 in 4:51.16 as Madison Scheirer cleared 4’8” in the high jump for third place.
For the Westhill boys, Evan Frost got second place in the 55 sprint in 6.92 seconds, with Patrick Mahoney second in the pole vault as he topped 9’6”.
Getting lots of points in the boys 1,600, the Warriors had Brandon Mulholland finish second in 4:49.30, with Drew O’Reilly (4:59.26) edging Brian Kenny (4:59.27) for third place.
The Warriors finished sixth in the 4×800 and 4×400 relays as Jon Gratien took fifth place in the triple jump with 36’1”.
