Clinton Boys Varsity Track and Field win 3rd straight Center State Conference Division 1 Championship!
The CCS Boys Track and Field team won its 3rd straight Center State Conference Division 1 Championship Wednesday 5/16 at arch rival West Canada Valley's newly re-surfaced stadium.
The Warriors were in a battle the whole way but held off the challenge by West Canada Valley to win by a narrow margin of 4 points.
That margin of 4 points would ironically prove to be nearly the same difference on the other side of the coin Wednesday 5/23 at Canastota HS where the Warriors narrowly missed a 6th straight Section III Class B-2 title defense by 4 and a HALF points to Cazenovia.
CCS was actually slated on paper to finish 3rd or 4th going into the meet (CCS, Cazenovia, Jordan-Elbridge and Hannibal all had pretty equal chances) but the "never say die" attitude of the warrior team produced 15 more points than expected and almost led to a miracle finish like CCS has done so many times in the past.
"The boys never give up. Ever. Just when people count us out... we come up with miracles. It's why I love our team so much. We are always dangerous and always believe in each other. If someone falters, the next guy is right there to pick up the slack. We have a tradition of winning and this little bump in the road is nothing for us to be ashamed of. It speaks world's about the program to be expected to ALWAYS win by your opponents no matter what."
The second place finish ends CCS's streak of consecutive Section III Class B-2 titles at 5 in a row (10 total over the last 25 years) and should leave the CCS boys hungry to take back "their" title for next year as many specialty event underclassmen return.
Seniors Andrew Ford and Chris Rivera had monster efforts and ran like true warriors doing everything they could to lead CCS leaving nothing on the track in their final appearances for the CCS team.
Ford ran to 3rd in the 1600, won the 800, finished 4th in the 3200 and then took to the track again to do everything he could for the team in the 3000 meter steeplechase. he ran the absolute maximum distance that an athlete is legally allowed to run at the meet.
Rivera anchored the 4x8 relay, came back to place 3rd in the 800, ran the 4x4 relay and (like Ford) took to the track again and emptied the tank in the 3000 meter steeplechase.
The senior distance/middle distance pair were workhorses for the team the entire year shouldering the load for the team and the senior class in those events virtually by themselves.
Senior Marley Glasgow shook off an early mishap in the High Jump and produced a valiant effort for second place in his signature event.
Senior Andrew Willis (school record holder in the pole vault) continued his domination in that event with a win to lead a stellar pole vault contingent of sophomores Matt Gadziala (2nd place to Willis) and Matt Lewis (4th place) as well as fellow senior Josh Heintz (6th place) to tally 23 points in that event alone.
Much credit goes to the efforts of those vaulters who went the extra mile to attend Utica college's weekly pole vault training camp sessions at night, after practices throughout the season run by former CCS assistant and current Utica College coach Sam Catterson and open to the public.
In addition to Gaziala's 2nd place finish in the Pole Vault huge points were scored by other underclassmen: Sophomore Killian Kulpa ran a life-time best to grab 3rd in the 200, 8th grader Kass Gifford did the same to get 4th in the 800, Junior Justin Stell came 3rd and 6th in the 110HH and 400H respectively and Sophomore Andrew Wieder placed 3rd in the High Jump.
Injuries bit the Warriors and played a factor in the sprints as CCS was without 8th grade stand out Mesafint Ellingson who would have been a major factor in the 200, 400, 800 and relays.
Not to be denied, Junior "Ironman" Robert Musante (hobbled by a hamstring issue for the last 2 weeks) took to the track anyways and muscled out a 4th in the 400 while fighting through the 4x8 relay the 200 and the 4x4 relay as well.
"Robert is a true Warrior and his leadership by example will do world's of good for this team going forward. There's a lot of talent returning in the sprints if we can keep these guys healthy and motivated. There's also a huge amount of potential in the specialty events returning already and if we can make some strides with some young up and coming distance guys...we will have the weapons to be a major force next year"
This season also saw yet the boys team grab yet another Cherry Valley Valley invite championship (Where Ford was named runner of the meet) another co-ed Junkyard relays championship (where Willis, Gadziala and Heintz broke the school record in the 3 x Pole vault relay) and most importantly...another undefeated regular season!
CCS boys have a current "head-to-head" dual meet winning streak of 48 straight victories stretching back to 4/8/2014!
Full results of Sectionals and CSCs are available at
www.leonetiming.com
