CENTRAL NEW YORK – Right at the end of the regular season, the West Genesee track and field team both honored its seniors and gave them quite a victory to celebrate.
The Wildcats met Fayetteville-Manlius last Wednesday afternoon in Camillus, and would put together a 73-67 victory on the boys side while also routing the Hornets 92-45 on the girls side.
Every point counted in the boys meet and F-M strong in the distance races, WG had to come through in the other disciplines – which it did, especially the field events.
Hayden Rothenberg went 39 feet 2 inches in the triple jump and was 1-2-3 with Kaleb Walker and Owen Flanagan, while Dan Kermes cleared 8 feet in the pole vault and James Mungro cleared 5’8” to beat out Rothenberg (5’6”) in the high jump.
Adding to this was Jayden Maeweathers throwing the shot put 41’2” to beat Landon Derbyshire, who got 39’6” to go with a discus of 115’2” that put him in second place.
Mungro, paired with Zach Hann, Nick Lamanna and James Ginestro, went three minutes, 40.46 seconds to edge F-M (3:40.81) in a tense 4×400 relay, while Will Fettig, Dylan Frost, Oliver Rufa and Will Rufa won the 4×100 in 46.40. Frost won the 200-meter dash in 23.16 as Lamanna took the 400 hurdles in 1:03.60 and Will Rufa got the 110 hurdles in 17.88.
The girls meet had a more comfortable WG margin and a big win in the 800-meter run by Claire Griffin, whose 2:22.49 beat out the 2:23.75 from F-M standout Izzie Sullivan.
More followed, whether it was Andrea Conklin, in 1:05.38, leading a 1-2-3 sweep of the 400 sprint with Bella Togias and Sarai Card, or Sofia Barba leading a similar effort in the 200, winning in 28.86 seconds over Chelsea Donaldson and Marissa Closson.
Amelia Haynes, in 19.13 seconds, led a top-three sweep of the 100 hurdles with Mia Bachman and Liz McLaughlin. Closson, Donaldson, Barba and Jaya Hunter went 54.56 in the 4×100 relay as Lily Pellegrino took the 400 hurdles in 1:12.35 over Chloe Fietze (1:13.61) and Mary Elizabeth Cornish.
Grace McInerney’s triple jump of 28’6” beat out Lila Severson (27’7) and Jailyn Kristoff, while Amelia Jennings had a shot put of 30’11” to beat out Eliana Freeman and Majda Miljokovic for another 1-2-3 WG sweep.
Westhill won its girls meet 109-30 over Cortland, with Eileen Mullen going 2:39.7 in the 800 and also winning the 1,500 as Adelina Montalto claimed the 3,000. Emma Murphy’s long jump of 15’7” edged Cortland’s Rileigh Madden (15’6 1/2”) by half an inch as Dericka Trotman cleared 4’10 in the high jump and Emma Marshall threw the discus 80 feet.
Mallie Alt (100 hurdles), Reagan Talucci (100 sprint), Abby Rudiger (400 sprint) and Molly Thompson (400 hurdles) also won races. Mary Kate Rewakowski cleared 8 feet in the pole vault and Ava Baty took the triple jump with 32’9 1/2” as Jael Hill threw the shot put 31 feet.
Meanwhile, Westhill’s boys lost 75-61 to Cortland, though Chris Gilkes won both the 1,600 (4:59.0) and 800 (2:21.5) distance races and Michael Faneli threw the discus 133’7”. Riley Sheridan topped 8 feet in the pole vault and Alex Dacko was first in the 3,200.
