Rush Henrietta’s Distance Medley and Sprint Medley

and Greece Athena’s Brian Smith break Section V Records!

Marine Corps & Dartmouth:

Over the break Rush Henrietta took their top runners to the Armory in NYC for the Marine Corps High School Invite on December 27^th and they won the Distance Medley and broke the Section V record last set by McQuaid in 1985 with a new record of 10:20.54.  The splits were:  Colby Burke 3:10.0, Peter Behnk 51.5, Alex Raymond 1:58.5 and Andrew Sweeney 4:20.3.   The same 4 guys also ran in the 4x400M and set the new Section V season best with a 3:28.70.   And they brought a 4x800M relay team of Brennan Root, Mickey Burke, Nate Kozyra and Mikey Schantz who set the Section V season best with a 8:23.54.  Then on Friday Jan. 6^th Rush took runners  to the Dartmouth Relays in New Hampshire where they broke the Section V record in the Sprint Medley at 3:36.86, (Malcolm Fowler, Peter Behnk, Josh Wray, Andrew Sweeney).  Meanwhile they already had the Section V leaders in the 3200M (Mickey Burke 9:56.92), the 1600M (Colby Burke 4:29.93), the 1000 (Andrew Sweeney 2:32.82),  the 600 (Colby Burke 1:24.50), and they even have a girl mid-distance leader with Alana MacDonold leading the 600M with a 1:42.30.

Also at the Marine Corp meet, Warsaw’s Karmen Auble improved her Section V leading mark in the pole vault to 11’6”.

Tiger:

The Tiger Invite on Saturday January 7^th at RIT saw another Section V record fall with Greece Athena’s Brian Smith breaking the 300M record with a 34.64 to best the record last set by Gates-Chili’s Tracy DeWitt in 2003 at 34.66.  This puts Smith at 3^rd in the nation in 1^st in the state.  The Buffalo area sent their top speedster in the person of Sweet Home’s Wayne Gordon who was ready to attack.  But Gordon could not break Smith’s undefeated seasons in neither the 300M (where Gordon took second at 35.82) nor the 55M which Smith won with a new Section V season’s best mark of 6.45 over Gordon’s 6.48.

Hilton’s Pat Meyer, a one-time leader in 4 different events, took back his Section V seasons best in the high jump with a leap of 6-6 which tied Greece Olympia’s Desmond Mobley for the season best, and beat Mobley at the Tiger Invite where Mobley jumped 6-4.   Meyer also won and extended his seasons best in the triple jump with a 45-2.5.

Pole Vault history was made at the Tiger Invite with Gates-Chili having FOUR BOYS CLEAR 12-6!  Event winner CJ Palozzi and Jeremy Bartula cleared 13’ and Ryan Ellis and Jacob Trieste cleared 12-6. Had it not been for Jared Brucker of Hamburg, the Gates-Chili vaulters would have swept the top 4 spots.  Only two other vaulters in all of Section V have cleared 12-6 or higher this season.

Wilson Magnet meanwhile dominated the boys long jump with Donovan Wallace (22-11.5) and Ismail El-Amin (22-5) taking 1-2 for the meet, and positions 1 and 3 on the leader board.  (Pat Meyer is at 2^nd).

For the girls the Edison Tech sprinters were dominant.  In the 55M Williamsville’s Kailyn Arcury prevented a  1-2 sweep by Edison Tech when she out leanedTanisha Love for the win with a 7.39.  Love’s 7.40 is the new seasons best, and Demonica Stanley took 3^rd with 7.62.

Edison Tech’s girl sprinters also won the 4x200M by a wide margin over 5 Buffalo area teams that chased them with a 1:46.39, and they won the 4x400M with a 4:18.20.

Penfield’s Leila Mantilla won the McMullen Mile and broke her own meet record with a time of 5:05.07.  Her teammate Katie Lembo stayed up with her for most of the race, but towards the end Mantilla pulled away and then Webster Schroeder’s Valerie Palermo and Webster Thomas’s Eileen O’Hara pulled away from the pack for a dramatic battle for 2^nd that ended up Palermo, Lembo, O’Hara.

For the boys Greece Athena’s Keith Pease won with a 4:31.86 in a race that ran in a fairly tight pack for many laps, Victor’s Conor Hayward lead for much of the race, but Pease overtook him in the final lap.

RWTL Week #5

Friday night’s league meet at RIT produced a very exciting race with McQuaid’s Nick Rausher winning over Batavia’s Collin Mulcahy with times of 9:51:.17 and 9:51.23 respectively.  Both times pushed Rush Henrietta’s Mickey Burke’s time of 9:56.92 from week#2 down to 3^rd on the leaderboard.

by Reggie Henderson

Some current and former Section V track stars finished out the year at the Holiday Classic.  You can see the results and catch up on some Section V graduates here: Meet Results

The meet was open to all-comers, and a few outstanding performances that I noticed were:

HAC Junior Isabal Hirtelen-Booker blazed a 8.69 in the 55M Hurdles.  In a meet where events were almost exclusively won by college age and up,  Spencerport’s Maddie Kopp won the 400M with a 60.04 and Warsaw sophomore Karmen Auble won the pole vault 11’.  Section V graduate standouts attending included Cory Cox (East – Buffalo State) who won the long jump with a leap of 23-5, Brycen Spratling (Webster Schroeder – University of Ptitsburgh) who won the 800M with a 1:59.78, Tomarris Bell (McQuaid – University of Buffalo) won the high jump with 6-6¾ (2.00M!).  And for the master’s, winning the 40+ pole vault with a jump of 12’ was yours truly! (Greece Arcadia – Columbia).

Erica Williams breaks the Section V Indoor Shot Put Record for the 3^rd Time!

Erica Williams of Batavia broke the shot put record again, this time with a 42-8!

Pat Meyer of Hilton came in having the Section V season bests in HJ, LJ, TJ, and moved on to the 55M Hurdles which he won and set ANOTHER Section V season best at RIT with a 7.74 (that's right 4 events).  Over at Hobart, Shyquan Jones ran a 7.78 and Eric Williams ran a 7.91, so it will be fun when all three of them are in the same race.  Meyer also won the long jump at RIT extending his best to 22-07.25, but… over at Hobart Ismail El-Amin leaped 22-10 to take over the seasons best mark.  And the high jump lit up at both sites with Mike Morgan of Wayne besting Meyer's season best of 6-4 with his own jump of 6-5 and then over at RIT Desmond Mobley of Greece Olympia leaped a HUGE 6-6!

For the girls the big multi-event jumper was Red Creek's Eleonore Grant who won all three events she entered at RIT, clearing 9-0 in the pole vault, running 9.10 in the 55M Hurdles, and hitting the Section V season best in the TJ with a 35-08.

Brian Smith of Greece Athena continued his domination of the sprints entering the 55M and setting the seasons best in that event with a 6.54.  Smith also won the 600M with a 1:28.07.

Taylor Harkness of Batavia took over the seasons best in the long jump with a 16-02.50.

Rebekah Champlin of Marcus Whitman lowered her NY State leading time in the 1500M racewalk even further to 7:11.38.

Canandaigua's McCormick sisters did well as always going Meghan – Katie, 1-2 in the 1000M, and in the 1500M Meghan won a close race against Penfield's Leila Mantilla 4:52.52 to 4:52.76 with Katie coming in third.   By the way, the times from the 3000M from a couple weeks ago with Mantilla, M.McCormick,Katie Lembo, K.McCormick were reported on Milesplit.com and Mantilla's 10:18.55 is the top 3000M time reported so far in the nation, with Katie McCormick's 4^th place coming in at 11^th in the nation, so that was definitely the girls 3000M race of the year so far in the U.S. (I guess the Armory doesn't get all the best races).

One Event before Christmas

Everyone got to do one event at the best facility just ahead of Christmas and there were some great performances.

Pat Meyer of Hilton is starting out his senior year just owning the jumps (the vaulters should be relieved he’s not doing their event too).  Meyer who is already is the Section V leader in the high jump (6’4”) and the long jump (21’9”) entered the triple jump and now leads that event with a 43’ 2¼” performance.

Brian Smith of Athena ran the 300M even faster with an even wider margin over the rest of the field.  Smith’s 34.94 breaks 35 and might be the fastest 300M on a non-banked track in the nation.

Maddie Kopp of Spencerport got within a whisper of the Milesplit US First Team Elite time of 41.50 as she ran a 41.67 (she would definitely be crushing it on the Armory’s banked track).

The DEF 1000M race was a scorcher with Rush Henrietta’s Andrew Sweeney blazing a 2:32.82, and Victor’s MJ Erb and Brighton junior Andrew Mullen battling it out for 2^nd with Erb hitting a 35.01 and Mullen barely missing the US First Team Elite standard of 35.5 with his 35.58.

Colby Burke had the big performance for Rush Henrietta’s Burke brothers with the first sub-4:30 1600M of the season.

Leila Mantilla of Penfield hit the first sub-3 1000M for the girls, and would be repeating last year’s feat of holding the lead in the 3000, 1500 and 1000, but her teammate sophomore Katie Lembo outpaced the rest of Friday night’s field by 12 seconds with a 4:49.28 which also clipped Mantilla’s season leading time in the event.  By the way, I missed the race last week where 4 of the top 5 cross country runners faced off in the 3000M.  Hobart’s track didn’t produce the fastest times, but when you get Canandaigua’s McComick sisters in a race with the Penfield duo of Mantilla and Lembo its always exciting and you never know who will win, last week if fell this way: Mantilla, Meghan McCormick, Lembo, Katie McCormick.

The girls 55M produced an unbelievable photo-finish TIE for first with a season leading time of 7.50 for both Aquinas’ Camaria Long and Edison Tech freshmen Demonica Stanley.

In the pole vault Gates-Chili’s Jeremy Bartula hit the first 13’ jump of the season.