Tamiah Washington, Mohawk Valley athletes shine at state Track and Field Championships
Track and field stars from around New York state trekked to Cicero-North Syracuse High School just outside Syracuse last weekend for the State and Federation Track and Field Championships. Numerous local athletes found success. Here are some of the highlights:
Washington excels for Proctor
The Mohawk Valley's biggest winner this past weekend should not have surprised anyone who followed track this season.
Tamiah Washington from Proctor emerged victorious in both triple jump (41-8 3/4) and long jump (19-4 1/2) at the State Championships on Friday. She previously won the long and triple jump at state qualifiers the week before.
She landed above Alexandra Kelly from Rocky Point in both.
The next day, at the State Federation Tournament, the Texas Tech commit ended third in triple jump and second in long jump. Federations include athletes from private and New York City schools.
More: Section III track and field results, top performers for the 2022 season
More: Proctor's Tamiah Washington signs National Letter of Intent to Texas Tech
Herkimer's Couchman vaults to second
Herkimer junior Melia Couchman won the Division II pole vault competition at Section III's open qualifier and previously took home the Class C1 title in the event.
Competing in a single division Friday to start the state meet in her return to Cicero, Couchman cleared the bar at 10 feet, 6 inches, an inch shy of her winning effort one week earlier and placed 15th overall.
Couchman and Trumansburg senior Isabel Morse used all three of their allotted attempts to clear 10-6, leaving Couchman with one more miss to that point in the competition after both entered at 9-6. Morse cleared the bar at 11 feet on her second try while Couchman missed three times.
Morse went out at 11-3, the next height contested.
Clinton senior Claire Barone also competed in the girls' pole vault and ended in a tie for 24th place after clearing her first height - 8-6 - on her first try. Barone tied for ninth in Division II.
Pugh places third in pentathlon
Rome Free Academy sophomore Imani Pugh and Herkimer senior Brian Reile found success in two days of pentathlon competition.
Pugh placed third in Division I and overall among 23 athletes in the girls' event, earning second in the high jump and 100-meter hurdles and fifth in both the high and long jumps. She beat Valley Stream South's Melissa Gueye by two 1,000ths of a second for 13th place in the 800-meter run; the times drew the same score for the pentathlon.
Reile finished 13th among 24 boys and eighth in Division II. He tied with two other competitors for the top high jump, clearing the bar at a little over 6 feet - pentathlon scoring is metric - and he won his heat of the 110-meter hurdles to place third in that event.
Pugh's teammate, Edward Rakowski, finished fifth overall in the boys' high jump and fourth in Division I.
Fonda-Fultonville's Saltsman wins two events
Senior thrower Alessandro Saltsman entered the state meet as the top Division II seed for the shot put and discus and brought first place finishes home to Fonda-Fultonville in both.
Saltsman won the discus by almost 10 feet Friday with a winning throw of 176 feet, one inch. Warsaw's Matthew Auble was second at 166-2. Simon Thomas from Morrisville-Eaton finished ninth with his first throw of 124-5.
The Brave returned for federation competition against Division I throwers Saturday and won again at 182-5.
Saltsman's throw of 53-8 in the first round as enough to win the shot put competition before he went 53 8 3/4 in the final. Joey Cirasuolo from New York Mills threw 43-2 1/2 and finished 11th after not advancing. Saltsman finished fifth in the federation shot put.
Another win for the Braves
Saltsman was one of four Braves competing at the state meet.
Carter Petersen cleared 15 feet, 6 inches in the pole vault to win his Division II competition and finish second overall behind Nick Lourenco from St. Anthony's High School in South Huntington who went 16-7 1/2 to break an 11-year-old meet record.
Petersen was successful in each of his first four attempts but could not get past 15-9. He also finished second in the 110-meter hurdles with Central Valley Academy's Nicholas Shedd running eighth in that event.
Petersen and Shedd qualified fifth and seventh out of the same heat with winner Kendall Mariacher from Iroquois in the preliminaries.
Shedd added a seventh-place finish in the Division II 400-meter hurdles.
His performance, combined with Alessandro Saltsman's wins in the Division II shot put and discus helped Fonda-Fultonville accumulate 20 team point to match Cardinal Hayes boys from the Bronx for the third-highest total among 79 scoring schools. Section II's Troy-La Salle Institute and Shenendehowa each had 26. The Braves' total was highest for a Division II school.
Petersen's sister was also a qualifier. Amelia Petersen, a junior, ran 13th in the preliminary heats for the Division II girls' 400-meter hurdles.
Fonda-Fultonville's Bennett Melita and Sauquoit Valley's Kole Owens finished 10th and 12th among Division II runners in the single 33-runner 3,200-meter field. Colton Kempney from Section III Beaver River placed fourth overall as the Division II champion.
How other area athletes fared
Cooperstown sisters Claire and Annelise Jensen competed in three events. Claire Jensen ran fifth in the Division II 400-meter race and finished 12th in the qualifying heats for the 200. Annelise Jensen ran 17th among 27 800-meter runners and finished eighth in Division II.
Elizabeth Lucason returned to the state meet after competing in Middletown when it were last contested in 2019 while she was a freshman. Lucason ran two events at Bragman Stadium, placing fourth in Division II in both the 3,000- and 1,500-meter runs; she finished 10th and 15th overall in races run as a single division. Three years ago she ran seventh overall in the 1,500 and placed second in Division II.
Poland's Maddison Haver advanced to the finals of the girls' Division II 100-meter dash and placed sixth.
Canastota's Devon Youker ran seventh in the 100-meter dash for the Division II boys.
Addison Lazarek of Sauquoit Valley placed fifth in the Division II triple jump, an event that saw Section II Stillwater's Kelly Moran win the competition after she and teammates Gianna Locci and Kara Moran swept the top three positions in the Division II long jump.
Juniors Mackenzie Roth from Mt. Markham and Lily Stoddard from Sherburne-Earlville finished seventh and 15th, respectively, among 19 competitors in the Division II girls discus. Roth advanced to the second round of the competition and peaked with throw of 109 feet, 10 inches.
Camden's Connor Dean, Dolgeville's Jed Guenthner and Central Valley Academy's Aaxavier Howard placed 14th, 16th and 17th, respectively in the the Division II boys' long jump.
Jaiovonni Bowman from the Utica Academy of Science placed seventh in the Division II boys triple jump.
This article originally appeared on Times Telegram: Mohawk Valley Track and Field athletes star at NY state championships
