MARCY – Just as they had done all spring, the East Syracuse Minoa girls and Jamesville-DeWitt boys track and field teams won big at the most important meet of the season.
It was the girls Spartans, with 150 points, getting the title in Friday’s Section III Class A championships at Whitesboro High School, fighting off the 116 from second-place J-D as the boys Red Rams prevailed with 118 points and ESM (95 points) was third.
Again dominating the girls sprints, ESM’s Evanni McDuffie, the school record-holder at 100 and 200 meters, claimed the 100 here in 12.49 seconds and, moving to the 4×100 relay, paired with Anaharie Anderson, Kaleigh Maloof and Akuot Kuany to win in 50.89 to Central Square’s second-place 51.12, with J-D (53.95) fifth.
In the high jump, Margaret Mading won, clearing 5 feet 2 inches, but Kuany and Arianna Brennen matched it for a 1-2-3 Spartans finish as Mading also dominated the triple jump, going 35 feet 6 1/2 inches to a 31’10 1/2″ from Maloof in second place.
Rachael Ladd, in the 2,000-meter steeplechase, pulled away to win in 7:50.19, the only time under eight minutes.In the 200-meter dash, McDuffie went 25.45 seconds, just behind the 25.43 from Central Square’s Alyssa Costello.
Anderson got second in the 400 hurdles in 1:10.45, edging Amber Hayes (1:10.48) in third place. Rachael Burt went 5:22.45 for second place at 1,500 meters as Ainsley McKenna (5:40.17) was fourth, to go with a fifth in the 3,000. ESM also finished fourth in the 4×800 relay in 10:45.16 to J-D’s fifth-place 10:57.81.
To lead J-D, Hailey Webber threw the shot put 39’10” to beat the 32’8″ from Jillian Webber, while in the discus Jillian Webber took her turn at the top with a heave of 110’1″ as no one else got close to the 100-foot mark.
A close 100 hurdles had Victoria Payne, in 15.78 seconds, beat out Kuany’s 16.09, with Arianna Brennen fourth (17.35) and Kaleigh Maloof sixth (17.95), Payne also helping Nikki Militi, Meghana Reddy and Norah Kirch go 4:11.57 to win the 4×400 relay, ESM third in 4:20.95.
The Rams went 1-2 in the 400-meter dash, Militi winning in 1:00.48 and Payne second in 1:01.17, before an 800-meter run where Reddy prevailed in 2:28.43, the Spartans’ Bailey Rehm finishing fourth. Emma Deehan won the pole vault clearing 8 feet with fewer misses than ESM’s Elise Mancini.
Also for the Rams, Ellyana Deng was third in the long jump, going 16′ 1/2″ as Brennen was fourth for ESM. Molly McIntyre took fourth in the 3,000-meter run and Kirch was fifth in the 400 hurdles, while Emma Cottet was sixth in the pentathlon.
On the boys side, J-D’s dominance of distance races was led by Connor Clarkson, who won twice on his own, culminating with a 10:42.66 clocking to beat the field in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Clarkson would beat the field in the 1,600-meter run in 4:41.87, with Hudson Groat sixth and Chris Donaghue seventh, but Groat was victorious in the 800, going 2:04.93 as Ryan Carter finished third in 2:07.55. And in the 3,200-meter run, Jisan Lamichhane won in 10:38.53 and Clarkson was second in 10:44.76.
Also victorious, the Rams’ 4×800 relay team of Clarkson, Carter, Groat and Noah Rafkis went 8:29.55 to edge New Hartford’s 8:31.75 as ESM (8:53.41) was sixth, meaning Clarkson helped produce 38 points for the winning side.
In a close pentathlon similar to the SCAC Empire division meet, J-D’s Sean Rigdon won this time, with 2,645 points to the 2,542 from ESM’s Phil Moore in second place.
Andres Valladares, clearing 6 feet, beat ESM’s Ryan Sullivan (5’10”) in the high jump and got fifth in the 400 sprint in 52.89 seconds as Kevin Vigneault threw the discus 126’7″ for second place to go with a fourth in the shot put. Terrell Willis was fifth in the triple jump with a 40-foot attempt.
But ESM did win in the 110 hurdles, where Abdi Aden went 15.77 seconds and no one else broke the 16-second mark, Ryan Sullivan (17.03) beating J-D’s Daksh Maini (17.35) in fourth place.
Then Joe Pedrosa-Garcia, in 58.91 seconds, pulled away from the Rams’ Shane Gargiulo (1:00.50) in the homestretch to win the 400 hurdles, where Braydon Johnson was sixth for the Rams.
Aden, Mikah Combs, Sumit Kadarya and Aidan Hirt were second (43.66 seconds), right behind Whitesboro (43.52), in the 4×100, with J-D third in 45.41.
Mekai Carroll, throwing the shot put 44’9″, finished second as Aaron Ali took fourth (118’8″) in the discus. Luke Mancini took third in the pole vault, clearing 11 feet as Central Square’s Austin Melvin won topping 13’7″.
In the 200, Hirt nearly won, his 22.67 one-hundredth of a second behind Whitesboro’s Jack Towns (22.66) as Combs was third in 23.16. Combs, in 11.51, beat out Kadarya (11.64) and Hirt (11.66) for fourth in the 100.
