CICERO – Athletes from four different area track and field teams won events during Thursday’s Section III state qualifying meet at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium.
Braving 90-plus degree temperatures, several individuals stood out, especially distance runners from Fayetteville-Manlius along with East Syracuse Minoa sprinter Evanni McDuffie and Jamesville-DeWitt’s throwing duo of Hailey and Jillian Webber.
In the girls shot put, Hailey Webber threw it 40 feet ¾ inch to beat out Liverpool’s Allie Cary (38’10”) as Jillian (31’10 1/2”) was sixth, but improved to fourth (98’7”) in the discus ahead of Hailey’s fifth-place 94’3”.
Winning on the girls side for J-D was the 4×400 relay team of Norah Kirch, Meghana Reddy, Victoria Payne and Nikki Militi, who 4:06.36 held off Baldwinsville (4:07.66) for the top spot as ESM was eighth in 4:28.49.
Payne won the 100 hurdles, going 15.06 seconds to beat out C-NS’s Morgan Hayes (15.15) and Kalli Congden (15.20) to earn a berth in the state meet alongside Militi, who won the 400-meter dash in 59.46, edging the 59.49 from B’ville’s Madison Kennedy.
J-D had Shane Gargiulo, Brayden Rivera, Moujihad Cherif and Andres Valladares get second (3:28.74) to Baldwinsville (3:27.13) in the boys 4×400 relay. Connor Clarkson got second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10:09.91 to the 10:05.65 from B’ville’s Noah Covert.Sean Rigdon took third in the Division I pentathlon with 2,502 points.
Again victorious in the girls 100-meter dash, ESM’s Evanni McDuffie finished in 12.01 seconds, again clear of Central Square’s Alyssa Costello (12.20), just as in the Class A sectional meet six days earlier.
Margaret Mading won for the Spartans, too, going 36’7 1/2” in the triple jump to beat out the 36’4” from C-NS’s Anna Eells. Mading also was third in the high jump with Akuot Kuany fourth, both clearing 5’2” as Arianna Brennen was fifth with 5’1”.
McDuffie, Akuot Kuany, Anharie Anderson and Kaleigh Maloof were second (50.08 seconds) to Liverpool (49.18) in the 4×100 relay, with Anderson second in the 400 hurdles in 1:07.71
ESM’s boys had Aidan Hirt get second place in the boys 200 sprint in 22.66 seconds, with Luke Mancini fourth in the pole vault (11’6”) and Mekai Carroll going 39’7” in the shot put for sixth place.
F-M’s Nolan McGinn would speed to victory in the boys 1,600-meter run in 4:18.24, with Anthony Otis fifth as Mason Weires was third in the 800 in 2:00.68, just ahead of J-D’s Hudson Groat (2:00.69) in fourth.
Cooper Dereszynski earned second place in the 400 hurdles in 57.53 seconds, with ESM’s Joe Pedrosa-Garcia fourth (58.89) and Gargiulo fifth in 59.09. Lugo Nwokedi had a fourth-place triple jump of 41’4 1/2”.
Denim Hall, clearing 5’10”, gained third place in the high jump. Alex Martinez got third (9:37.50) and McGinn fifth (9:51.40) in the 3,200-meter run. Nick Domashenko took seventh in the 100 in 11.16 seconds.
Meanwhile, the F-M girls had Izzie Sullivan go 9:48.39 to pull away and win at 3,000 meters as no one else broke the 10-minute mark. The Hornets’ 4×800 relay team of Sullivan, Hannah Kaercher, Maria Khalifeh and Claire McDonald finished second in 9:35.55 as Khalifeh got second in the 1,500-meter run in 4:52.16, with Kaercher (4:59.16) in third place.
Christian Brothers Academy got two sprint wins from Damien Williams, who took the 100-meter dash in 10.82 seconds after qualifying for the final in 10.82 and then claimed the 200 in 22.36 seconds, more than half a second ahead of the field.
CBA also got a win on the Division II girls side from its 4×800 team as Grace Fletcher, Claire Krueger, Ally Roueche and Katherine Williamson went 9:48.07 to pull away from runner-up Pulaski’s 9:54.41.
