SYRACUSE – In many different ways, it proved a memorable Wednesday evening for the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool indoor track and field teams at SRC Arena, where the Section III state qualifying meet took place.
It peaked for the girls Northstars when, in the 4×200 relay, it broke its own eight-day old sectional record. Jaydin Mackey, Stephanie Todd, Grace Murray and Marissa Doty tore to a time of one minute, 45.20 seconds that improved on what it did in the sectional Class AA meet by four-tenths of a second.
And it had to be this good because Liverpool’s quartet of Nahla Battle-Crenshaw, Maddie Devendorf, Mikayla Greene and Mia Wright went 1:46.48 to finish second beat the state qualifying standard of 1:47.54 by a full second.
This was just one of a large amount of victories claimed by C-NS and Liverpool athletes during the state qualifier.
Mackey, for one, claimed a thrilling 55-meter dash in 7.28 seconds to beat Altmar-Parish-Williamstown’s Isabella Scott (7.29) by one-hundredth of a second as Greene was fifth in 7.55. Then she helped Murray, Doty and Sophia Graham tear to victory in the 4×400 relay in 4:06.28 to Cazenovia’s 4:07.23 as Liverpool (4:25.21) was eighth.
Not to be left out, Liverpool turned to Ny’Quez Madison, who in the triple jump prevailed with 43 feet 9 inches ahead of Cazenovia’s Connor Frisbie (42’8”). Madison also was fifth in the long jump, going 20’7”.
Back on the oval, Wright won for the Liverpool girls in the 300-meter dash, going 42.63 seconds to top the 42.93 from South Jefferson’s Kennady Billman.
Taylor Page also prevailed for the Warriors in the 1,000-meter run as the only one to break three minutes, Page winning in 2:59.74 as C-NS’s Gabby Putman was fourth in 3:04.45 and Charlotte Warner (3:14.11) was eighth.
Graham broke out to win the girls 600-meter run in 1:39.25 over Oriskany’s Emma Szarek (1:40.46), while Harbold finished third in the 1,500-meter run in 4:49.73, missing the state qualifying standard (4:49.54) by a small margin.
Page, Warner, Addison Ziegler and Kaitlyn Hotaling helped Liverpool finish second in the 4×800 relay in 9:52.47, beating the third-place 9:56.41 from C-NS’s team of Putman, Harbold, Maddie Frisch and Gianna Melfi.
In the pole vault, Layla Pearl Collins topped 9 feet, a new personal mark, for fourth place. Eighth-grader Kennedy Jones was fourth in the 3,000-meter run in 10:46.55, just beating out Hotaling’s 10:47.75.
C-NS’s Anna Eells almost won the girls 55 hurdles, her 8.40 seconds one-hundredth of a second behind the 8.39 from Jamesville-DeWitt’s Victoria Payne, though both qualified for the state meet, as did Morgan Hayes, who finished fifth in 8.61.
Adding to this effort, Eells also finished third in the high jump, clearing 5’3” as Audrey Jenkins topped 4’8” for the Warriors, while in the triple jump Eells’ 38 feet meant another third-place finish in front of Hayes (36’4”) in fifth place.
In the long jump, Hayes’ 17’10 3/4” put her a quarter of an inch behind the 17’11” from Utica Proctor eighth-grader Raiyah Patterson as Devendorf (16’5”) was ninth.
Back in the boys meet, Camron Ingram claimed the 55-meter hurdles for C-NS, his 7.40 seconds edging the 7.42 from Corcoran’s Tawakal Omar as Kavon Brunson was fourth in 7.80.
Then, in the 55-meter sprint final, Ingram again squared off with Omar and, again, won with 6.49 seconds to Omar’s 6.58, with Davine Bennett, in 6.66 seconds, taking fifth and also advancing to the state meet. Bennett, Brunson, Ingram and Christian Kahrs got third place in the 4×200 in 1:35.72, with Kahrs fourth in the 300 in a season-best 36.58.
Joe Main almost added to the C-NS win total in the shot put, his top toss of 51’9” qualifying him for the state meet but second to the 52’1 3/4” from Central Valley Academy’s Logan Hewitt. Main also was 11th in the weight throw with 48’3 1/2”.
Liverpool had Roman Murray finish fourth (2:38.84) and Joshua Vang fifth (2:41.31) in the 1,000 before they paired with Brady Ruediger and Ian Sherlock for third in the 4×800 in 8:32.38 ahead of C-NS’s fourth-place 8:38.54 from Tyler Graham, Dom Petrera, Joe Massett and Rhett Andrews.
