SYRACUSE – Helped in no small part by four school records and 12 season-best performances, the Cazenovia girls indoor track and field team closed its latest special season with a particular bang.’
The Lakers were a featured part of Wednesday’s Section III state qualifying meet at SRC Arena, most notably Susie Pittman, who broke three of those school records and prevailed in her specialty, the pole vault.
Earning first-team All-Central New York honors, Pittman won the pole vault with a school-record leap of 10 feet 6 inches. She dominated the field, clearing each height on the first attempt and being the only vaulter to exceed 10 feet.
This was the fourth time this season that Pittman has set a new record in the pole vault, vastly upending the old mark of 9’6” which had stood for 20 years.
Pittman also broke a 13 year-old schoo mark at 400 meters as she ran the opening leg of the Lakers’ 4×400 meter relay in 1:00.42, topping the old mark of 1:01.0 that had stood since 2011.
She was part of a fabulous foursome with Reid McMurtrie (1:00.72), Izzy Stromer-Galley (1:02.17) and Meghan Mehlbaum (1:03.70) all running personal best times to set a new school record. The group had broken the existing 2012 mark of 4:16.79 earlier this winter with a time of 4:13.12, then shattered that mark again with a new record time of 4:07.03 at the qualifier.
Cazenovia finished less than a second behind the powerhouse Cicero-North Syracuse squad (4:06.28) in the overall 4×400, but the elation over the new mark was tempered with the disappointment of missing a trip to the state meet by nine-hundredths of a second as they missed the elite “super standard” of 4:06.94.
Maddy Rothfeld was another Laker star to leave her mark on the record book during the historic meet, smashing her own mark of 37’4” in the weight throw set just a week earlier by nearly five feet.
Rothfeld advanced to the finals with a powerful effort of 38’4 1/4” and then proceeded to improve upon that twice more, ending with an exceptional 42’1”on her final throw. She finished third in the section, just one place from a trip to the state meet that went to Skaneateles’ Mara Stanton, who went 42’7”.
Rothfeld also capped an exceptional season in the shot put, reaching the finals and finishing fifth with 32’ 3/4”. While short of her sectional Class B-2 champion personal best performance of 33’9” set a week earlier, it was still an excellent capstone performance for the Senior star.
Maura Phillips led Cazenovia to a season best time in the 4×800 meter relay, running a personal best 800-meter split of 2:29.4. It was a well-balanced performance as Reid McMurtie (2:31.0), Olivia Ruddy (2:33.8) and Lily Kogut (personal best of 2:34.6) combined for 10:08.74 and fourth place.
Claire Marris earned two personal bests on the night as she triple jumped 34’6 3/4” to finish in the top 10 in the section and returned to lead off the 4×200 meter relay with a best-ever split of 27.6 seconds. She combined with Ella Gale, Caroline Mehlbaum and Dinah Gifford to go 1:55.14 and finish ninth in the section.
Audie Spring represented the Lakers in the long jump to follow up on her Class B-2 champion effort in the event a week earlier and went 14’10 1/2” here, with Stromer-Galley also contesting the 55-meter dash (7.84 seconds) and Marris the 55 hurdles. In total, 18 members of the Cazenovia squad earned a trip to the elite meet in 12 of the 16 events.
