SYRACUSE – Largely based on its strong work in field events and sprints, the Jamesville-DeWitt girls indoor track and field team made its way to the top and won the Section III Class A championship Tuesday at SRC Arena.
All told, the Red Rams had 120 points, clear of the 88 from runner-up Auburn as East Syracuse Minoa finished third with 62 points.
Again J-D’s girls piled up points in throwing events. Kenna Ridzi swept them, tossing the shot put 36’ 3/4” inch to beat the second-place 33’8 1/2” from Skylar Vaught, with ESM’s Gianna Brilbeck fourth and Laura Olmstead sixth.
Over in the weight throw, Ridzi prevailed again, going 44’3 1/2” to set a new personal best as Vaught was third with 36’6. Brilbeck (30’10”) and Olmstead (30’4 1/2”) rounded out the top five for the Spartans.
J-D also went 1-2 in the triple jump, Nina Autry winning with 33’6” edging the 33’4 1/2” from Ellyana Deng as Aarohi Rastogi stepped up with a 32’ 1/2” for fifth place.
On the oval, the Rams’ Victoria Payne went 8.62 seconds in the 55-meter hurdles to edge Nottingham’s Miyanah Robinson (8.63) by one-hundredth of a second. Payne added a third-place finish in the 300-meter dash in 43.81.
Nicki Militi made her way to second place in the 600-meter run in 1:44.57, edged out by Auburn’s Nora Burroughs (1:44.47) by one-tenth of a second as Abi Adams finished seventh. Brielle Rivera cleared 8’6” in the pole vault for second place to Central Square’s Casandra Koegel (9 feet), with Kenna Ridzi fifth (8 feet) and Kaitlyn Cohen sixth (7’6”).
Meghana Reddy went 3:08.82, a season best, for third place in the 1,000-meter run, with Deng clearing 5 feet for third place in the high jump and Amariyah McClinton sixth at 4’8” as Deng took fifth ( 15’4 3/4”) in the long jump. J-D also finished fourth in the 4×400 relay in 4:29.65, with ESM fifth in 4:32.95.
ESM’s girls swept the sprints. Evanni McDuffie went 7.36 seconds to win the 55-meter dash, with Amber Hayes third in 7.65, but then winning the 300 in 43.47 to beat Payne and complement her third-place finish in the 55 hurdles in a season-best 8.76.
Then, in the meet-closing 4×200 relay, McDuffie was joined by Madelyn Copp, Giana DiPietro and Naomi Benjamin to go 1:52.45 and, by eight-hundredths of a second, beat the 1:52.53 of J-D from Payne, Autry, McClinton and Claire Trevisani, with Nottingham third in 1:52.80.
Rachael Burt got fifth place in the 3,000-meter run in 11:31.04 and ninth in the 1,500, with Jaelyn Jordan sixth in the 1,000 and Laila Thomas sixth in the 600 as Copp was sixth in the triple jump with 31’5 1/4”.
In the boys sectional Class A meet, ESM’s 71 points was second to Auburn’s 96, while J-D earned fourth place with 56.5 points.
Jay-Neil McDuffie gave the Spartans a win in the long jump, going 20’9” to edge the 20’7” from Central Square’s Austin Melvin. Ryan Sullivan won the high jump, the only competitor to clear 6’2” as he edged PSLA-Fowler’s Damareon Gary (6’1”) for top honors as Caleb Byrd was fourth (5’6”) for the Spartans.
Phil Moore, in 8.28 seconds, grabbed second place in the 55 hurdles, with Sullivan third in 8.37. In the triple jump, Sullivan earned fourth place with 40’10”.
The Spartans also had Joe Pedrosa-Garcia fourth in the 1,000 in 2:45.83 as Brandon Cerlanck was fifth in 2:49.67 before a 4×800 where Pedrosa-Garcia, Cerlanck, Seamus DeSandre and Austin Gott posted 9:00.77, second to Auburn’s quick 8:41.02. DeSandre added a fifth-place time of 1:33.59 in the 600.
McDuffie took fourth in the 55 sprint in a season-best 6.69 seconds as Hashim Abdi (6.84) was fifth, with Michael Ojeda fourth in the pole vault, clearing a season-best 9’6”, to go with an eighth in the high jump behind Sullivan. Victor Rodriguez finished seventh in the shot put with 39’4” as Aaron Ali got eighth in the weight throw with 43’6”
As for J-D, it won the 4×400 when Shane Gargiulo, Brayden Rivera, Ben Kenna and Will Westpfal tore to a time of 3:30.06 over Auburn’s 3:32.12 as ESM got fifth place in 3:58.26.
Individually, Westpfal got seventh and Rivera eighth in the 300, but they both returned for the 4×200 and, with Adam Rigdon and Daksh Maini, won in 1:34.10 to runner-up Corcoran’s 1:34.59 as ESM (1:39 flat) was sixth. Rigdon added a third (19’9 3/4”) and Jaden Addai a fifth (19’8”) in the long jump.
Following this, Hudson Groat went 1:27.14 to prevail in the 600, chased by, among others, Gargiulo in seventh place and Kennain eighth place, Groat also helping the 4×800 team get third place in 9:05.32.
Addai cleared 5’10” for third place in the high jump and was fifth in the triple jump (40’9 1/4”) ahead of Amar Lopez (39’6 3/4”) in sixth place. Maini got fifth place in the 55 hurdles in 8.55 seconds, while Deacon Enright was fifth in the pole vault, topping 9 feet ahead of Keegan Muller and Mustafa Abdel-Aziz tying for seventh. Peter Drew was eighth at 3,200 meters in 10:56.66.
