After dumping rain and snow on Delmar the previous weekend, Mother Nature decided to give the town a present Saturday.
Sunny, warm weather greeted the 23 girls track and field teams that participated in the second annual Bethlehem Invitational.
I’m extremely grateful, especially considering that during last year’s meet, it was pouring rain and 38 degrees, said Bethlehem coach Tom Hurley Sr.
The host team had a strong performance, placing sixth with 42 points. Colonie took the team title with 129 points, well ahead of runner-up Holy Names.
Competing for the meet title was secondary to just competing for Bethlehem, though. Like the rest of the region, the Lady Eagles had been stuck inside through much of the first three weeks of the season.
`There haven’t been many league meets because of the weather,` said Hurley. `We’ve only had two meets this year.`
Bethlehem had several top-six individual performances, led by Jessica Venezia’s second-place finish in the triple jump with a distance of 34 feet. Venezia was also fourth in the long jump with a leap of 15 feet, 11.5 inches.
Kristin Kenney also came up big for Bethlehem with a second-place performance in the 3,000-meter race in a time of 10:39.13.
`She’s looking a lot better right now,` Hurley said of Kenney, who is rebounding from injury-plagued cross country and indoor track seasons.
Lauren Lochinski-Mills and Kristin Peck contributed third-place performances for Bethlehem. Lochinski-Mills was third in the 100-meter dash finals with a time of 13.20 seconds, while Peck placed third in the invitational 1,000-meter race with a time of 3:04.57.
Sara Turner finished fourth in the high jump by clearing 5 feet, and Colleen Hart took fourth place in the shot put with a throw of 32 feet, 9.25 inches. Melina Vamvas was sixth in the discus with a throw of 90 feet, 5 inches.
Colonie runners won three of the four short-distance races. Najla Singleton-McKinnon finished first in the 200-meter dash with a time of 27 seconds, four-hundredths of a second ahead of Shaker’s Diana Hummel. Alicia Williams won the 400-meter race in a time of 59.14 seconds, and Nayamka Roberts-Smith took the 600-meter title in a time of 1:40.85.
Holy Names’ Klarissa Ricks prevented a Colonie sweep in the sprints by winning the 100-meter final with a time of 12.81 seconds. Teammate Jordan White took the invitational 1,000-meter race title with a time of 3:02.87 and added a first-place finish in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 49.53 seconds.
Greenwich’s Caitlin Lane won the 1,500-meter race with a time of 4:41.10, and Columbia’s Brina Seguine finished first in the 3,000-meter event with a time of 10:22.67. Holy Names’ Sara Makowiec won the 100-meter hurdles in a time of 16.55 seconds, and Colonie’s Shannon Finnegan claimed the 2,000-meter steeplechase title in a time of 7:34.50.
In field events, Cicero-North Syracuse’s Monique Roberts cleared 5 feet, 8 inches to win the high jump, while Niskayuna’s Patty Horan won the pole vault by clearing 9 feet. Ricks took first place in the long jump with a leap of 17 feet, 4.5 inches, and Lansingburgh’s Erica Farron won the triple jump with a distance of 34 feet, 10 inches.
Berne-Knox-Westerlo’s Sarah Hannay finished first in the shot put with a throw of 35 feet, .5 inches, and Ballston Spa’s Kaitlyn Staulters won the discus with a throw of 114 feet, 1 inch.
Colonie, Cicero-North Syracuse and Ballston Spa won the three varsity division relays contested at the Bethlehem Invitational.
Colonie’s 800-meter relay team of Williams, Singleton-McKinnon, Marisa Poleto and Laura Bolognino won its race with a time of 1:45.82. The Cicero-North Syracuse team of Roberts, Janise Harper, Rachel Bowles and Katie Duerr took the spint medley relay title with a time of 4:22.36, and Ballston Spa’s distance medley relay team of Becky Martin, Jennifer Cinella, Erica Brockman and Katie Dickman won its race with a time of 12:59.06.“