SYRACUSE – Having won all winter, the Baldwinsville boys indoor track and field team didn’t bother to stop once the collective portion of the season had concluded.
The Section III Class AA champion Bees continued to thrive at Wednesday’s sectional state qualifying meet at SRC Arena, assuring that a large contingent will go to Staten Island for the March 4-5 state championships.
Again leading the way, state Class A cross country champion Solomon Holden-Betts was victorious twice, in the 3,200 and 1,000-meter run.
Conquering the 3,200, Holden-Betts needed nine minutes, 17.81 seconds to reach the national top 50 in that event and beat the field by more than 13 seconds as Ryan Wilson was sixth in 9:56.66 and Noah Covert (10:14.93) ninth.
Later, in the 1,600-meter run, Holden-Betts cracked the state top 10 as he pulled away in the final lap to post 4:21.59 and beat the 4:24.03 from South Lewis’ Collin Stafford. Covert was eighth in 4:43.64.
B’ville also won the 4×400 relay as Brandon Levin, Logan Hayes, Kaleb Paul and Jack McAllister finished in 3:30.52, easily ahead of East Syracuse Minoa’s second-place 3:34.26.
And to close out the meet, in the 4×800 relay Holden-Betts and Wilson joined McAllister and Jeff Ragonese to go 8:28.13, nearly 10 seconds clear of runner-up Liverpool’s 8:37.59.
Adding a win in field events, the Bees saw Kyle Sheckler top large and small-school competitors by beating 12 feet 6 inches in the pole vault. Grayson Brady tied for seventh with 10’6”.
McAllister got involved in a 600-meter thriller, beaten in a near dead-heat by Central Valley Academy’s Tanner Warren, though both posted 1:25.40 ahead of Jeff Ragonese (1:25.92) in third place.
Logan Hayes, in 36.58 seconds, beat out Levin (36.69) for third place in the 300-meter dash, Levin reached the 55-meter dash finals, where he took fifth place in 6.70 seconds.
David Dobrowolski threw the shot put 42′ 1/2” for eighth place, adding an eighth in the weight throw (52’8”) just behind Nick Foster’s seventh-place 52’9 1/2”. Paul Clark was sixth in the 1,000-meter run in 2:47.63 as Griffin Killian topped 5’8” for sixth place in the high jump.
Logan Zapf was eighth (8.36 seconds) and Jackson Creelman 12th (8.46) in the boys 55 hurdles, Zapf also eighth in the triple jump with 39’6 1/4”. Kaleb Paul was 11th in the 55 sprint in 6.85. Kyle Sheckler, Griffin Killian, Nate Glidden and Zach Arria were eighth (1:40.10) in the 4×200 relay.
On the girls side for B’ville, Sydney McKenney topped 10 feet in the pole vault, second only to the 11’6” from Herkimer’s Melia Couchman. Kelsey Dwyer tied for fifth, topping 9 feet, while Julianna Gingrich excelled in the shot put, throwing a personal-best 33’4 1/2″ for fourth place.
Mia Pozzi, Madison Kennedy, Clare Horan and Avamarie Davis were second in the 4×400 relay in 4:14.48 to Cicero-North Syracuse’s winning 4:08.63Kamryn Barton went 3:11.37 in the 1,000 to finish seventh before helping Sophia Cavalieri, Mary Sabatino and Yolanda Weit get fifth in the 4×800 in 10:18.83.
McKenney was also 12th in the 55 hurdles in 9.43 seconds as Pozzi was eighth in the 300 in 44.17 and 10th in the 55 sprint in 7.69, a new season mark. . Dwyer, Anaiya Johnson, Carlie Desimone and Brianna Grosso finished eighth in the 4×200 in 1:58.06.
