Saranac Lake’s Sam Ash leads a group of runners in Wednesday’s 1,600m dash. (Corporate Photo – Parker O’Brien)
PERU — After the Saranac Lake boys’ track team exited Wednesday’s Section VII championship meeting at Peru High School, the team believed their chances of winning their third straight section title had burst out the window.
And why shouldn’t they? The hosts, the Peru Nighthawks, had already received their section championship badges while also taking a team photo with the Section VII banner.
But it was the Red Storm team that actually won the section title. An error in the scoring results was discovered on Thursday morning; The field events were not counted.
The Saranac Lake boys won the meeting with 129 points while the Nighthawks settled for second place with 122. The Lake Placid boys scored 25 points and finished seventh out of eleven teams.
In the girls, Saranac Central took the title with 246 points, while Lake Placid was fifth with 31 points and Saranac Lake was ninth with 16 points.
Mitchell Ellsworth played a big part in the Red Storm’s section title by taking home both boys’ throwing competitions. Ellsworth won the shot put with a throw of 50:03 and the discus with a throw of 133:08.
Liam Nobles, just a sophomore, won the long jump with a jump of 20:08 while also finishing third in the triple jump (39:7.5). Carter Hewitt, a senior, placed third in the long jump with a jump of 19:02.75
Soren Wolford was second in the 200 meters with 23.36, while Nobles was fourth with 24.14. Wolford also took third place in the 100-meter dash.
After the fastest first run, Hewitt finished third in the 110-meter hurdles with 16.26 seconds, while the Red Storm’s Robbie Sinclair (18.58) was eighth. Sinclair also finished fourth in the 800-meter hurdles with a 1:04.96, tied with teammate Morgan Martin with a 1:06.35.
Local runners took five of the top 10 spots in the 1,600m, with Saranac Lake’s Sam Ash taking the top spot in 4:32.61, followed by teammate Jake Kollmer (4:38.45) in third Place. Lake Placid’s Aidan Fay (4:38.57) was fourth and his teammate Andrew Scanio (4:44.78) was sixth. The Red Storm’s Aiden Hesseltine was 10th in 4:51.31.
The Lake Placid duo of Fay (10:04.87) and Scanio (10:05.41) finished second and third in the 3,200m. Ash (10:25.42) was fifth and Kollmer (10:29.91) was seventh.
The Saranac Lake boys also placed second in the 4×100-meter relay and 4×800-meter relay with times of 46.32 and 8:39.53, respectively.
In the girls, Lilly Rother of Lake Placid achieved the best result, finishing third overall in the 3,200 meter race in 11:23.58.
Kai McKinnon of the Blue Bombers finished fifth in the 1,500m with a time of 5:25.52, with Rother just behind her in sixth in 5:25.78. Keene junior Pia Morelli, racing for Lake Placid, finished fifth in the 400 with a 1:00.66.
Awa Kujabi from Saranac Lake placed seventh in the long jump with a jump of 14 feet. Kujabi placed eighth in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:19.77. Alice LaDue also had a good day for the Red Storm, finishing seventh in the triple jump with a 27:09.
In the shooting events, Lily Jones from Lake Placid won the shot put with a throw of 26-11. Red Storm’s Lena Dedivitis finished seventh in the discus with a throw of 71-00 and eighth in the shot put with a 25-05. Her teammate Hotchkiss finished eighth in the discus throw, 69-03.
The Lake Placid 4×400-meter relay and 4×800-meter relay finished fourth with times of 46.32 and 8:39.53, respectively.
Saranac Lake and Lake Placid will compete in the State Qualifiers meeting at Beekmantown High School on Friday, June 2nd.
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