by Kurt Wheeler
SYRACUSE – The Cazenovia girls indoor track team clocked some of their best times of the season as it scored 95.5 points to finish second among 20 teams at the Fred Kirschenheiter Memorial Invitational’s morning session last Saturday at SRC Arena.
Only Class AA Liverpool (131) outpaced the Lakers during the meet, the girls led by its relay teams with both the 4×400 and 4×200 meter groups winning in State Qualifier eligible times and the 4×800 taking second.
Grace Dolan led off the winning 4×400 team with a 1:04.9 effort followed by Reid McMurtrie (1:06.2), Meghan Mehlbaum (1:04.9) and Izzy Stromer-Galley (1:04.0). Each of these relay legs was a season best as the squad totaled 4:20.30, their fastest of the winter and tops in Section III Class B-2.
Dolan (28.3 seconds) and Stromer-Galley (28.5) also led and anchored the 4×200 to its fastest time of the season.
Riley Knapp (season best 27.0) and Caitlyn Smithers (29.0) ran speedy middle legs for the Lakers’ winning total of 1:53.16. Knapp (fourth place 7.77) and Smithers (seventh place, 7.90) also scored for Cazenovia in the 55 meter dash.
Smithers led a 19-point Laker effort in the pole vault as she cleared 7 feet 6 inches for second with Faith Wheeler adding a season-best 7’6” for third and Sofie Reger clearing 7 feet for fourth.
Knapp hit the sectional standard of 25’5” to take fifth in her debut in the shot put with Maddy Rothfeld seventh at 25’2”.
Wheeler led off the second place 4×800 meter relay with Maeve McGreevy, Sally Hughes and Dinah Gifford handling the baton in the successful 11:02.72 effort.
Elsewhere, Wheeler achieved a season best time of 5:24.55 to take fourth in the 1,500-meter run while McGreevy ran her speediest 1,000-meter race ever to earn second place in 3:29.31. Haylee Stearns also scored for Cazenovia in the event, picking up eighth in 3:41.71 in her first attempt at the 1,000.
Maura Phillips also had an impressive showing in her first effort at a new distance, hitting the sectional standard and placing sixth in the 600-meter run in 1:49.98.
Hughes also ran her fastest 600 ever, crossing the line in 1:54.63. Stromer-Galley closed out the Lakers’ scoring on the track with a season best time of 45.72 to earn fourth in the 300 meter dash.
Corrinne Albicker led Cazenovia in the jumps, reaching 14’1” for third in the long jump and 30’3 ¾” for seventh in the triple jump.
Mehlbaum added a fifth-place showing in the high jump at 4’6” and Rothfeld capped the field event scoring with a seventh-place effort of 30 feet in the weight throw, less than five inches from her best.
The cumulative effort by the Lady Lakers during the meet was impressive as they hit 17 Sectional standards, two State Qualifier marks and achieved 30 season bests overall.
Cazenovia faces a quick turnaround as it heads to Utica University for its final regular-season meet of the season on Thursday before preparing for the league and sectional championships.
