Lady Tornado battling through injuries, places third

VESTAL – The Section IV Track and Field Class B Championships were moved up a day due to a schedule change but that did not effect the Norwich track and field teams from competing like they have all season – dominating the track each and every meet.
The Norwich boys team made it three sectional championships in a row with the crushing victory over the rest of the Class B field, winning by 107 points. The Tornado boys finished with a total of 186 points with the second-place team hailing from Owego came away with 79 points.
While the girls team is battling a few injuries, Norwich did not capture the Class B title. However, after focusing on the individual performances, the Lady Tornado finished third in the standings with 85 points.
Eric Conant and David Berger, two of Norwich’s top sprinters on the squad, came away with a 1-2 finish in both the 100 meter and 200 meter dashes to combine for 36 of their team’s points.
Conant raced across the finish line in the 100 meter event to a time of 11.1 – the third fastest time run by the sprinter this season – to beat the rest of the finalists. Berger was on his heels for length of the race as he finished seven-hundredths behind his teammate.
In the 200 meter dash, the two were separated by a tenth of a second. Sophomore teammate Griffin Mills joined them on the podium with a third-place finish to give Norwich a top three finish in the event as he ran 23.60 to stand on the podium.
Mills also placed in the 400 meter event and the long jump, finishing the meet with two second-place ribbons to go along with the one from the 200 meter event.
Standing at the top of the podium for the same 400 meter run was Norwich’s Gabe Gawronski, crossing the finish line at 51.13 seconds – a full two seconds ahead of Mills in the event.
Gawronski also nabbed a red ribbon in the 800 meter run, an event he hasn’t run in the past few meets as he has been focusing on the 400 meter race to try and break the record. The Tornado senior ran the event in 2:04.42.
Both the Norwich 4x400 and the 4x100 meter relay teams came away with wins, crowning the foursomes with the Section IV Class B title. The 4x800 boys team placed fourth.
Hurdlers’ Noah Bufalini and Nik Barber finished 1-2 in the one lap race, coming within a second of each other. Bufalini topped the field with a time of 1:01.09 while Barber came in at 1:01.90.
Jacob Russell and Ryan Sanford, the other two boys hurdlers for Norwich, placed in the top of the competition in the 110 meter hurdles. Russell finished third while Sanford came in at fifth as both ran times below 20 seconds in the race.
Makaio Sutton and Stanton Baker, two of the Tornado’s top distance runners, placed in the 3200 meter race at the Class B Championships. Sutton ran the two-mile event in 10:44.23 for fourth and Baker placed sixth with his time of 10:59.13.
Norwich’s Stephen Kman has tried his first season at the 3000 meter steeplechase event and has had success at it. Tuesday night was no different as Kman placed third, racing through the water and over the larger hurdling obstacles to the finish line at 11:42.53.
In the field events of the meet, the Tornado added six podium finishes to aid in their Section IV Class B championship win.
Jaden Jenkins took the high jump event, winning with a final height cleared of 5 feet-10 inches. Jenkins defended the competition in the event by six inches.
Norwich’s Jon Matlack-Grey reached the nine-foot mark in the pole vault to place second in the event. The senior went into the event with a seed-height of eight feet, giving Matlack-Grey a personal best at the sectional meet.
To go along with his third place ribbon in the 110 meter hurdles, Russell added another white ribbon to his collection in the triple jump with his best distance of 38 feet-7 inches. He also placed fourth in the long jump to join teammate Mills on the podium.
Zach Lowe, Norwich’s junior thrower, came away with the winning toss in the shot put, winning the Section IV Class B title with a distance of 48 feet-2.75 inches – a throw that was five feet better than the second-place finisher.
Lowe added a third-place finish to his night in the discus throw event, launching the disc 131 feet-8 inches.
For the Norwich girls, Katie Gawronski came away with two Class B titles as the Tornado’s top finisher. She was joined by Shakira Alexander and Lexi Taylor with first place wins in the discus and pole vault.
Katie Gawronski had top success in both the 100 and 400 meter hurdles, beating the field easily in both. Gawronski topped all in the 100 meter hurdles by a full second while in the 400 event, she won by almost four full seconds.
In the 100 meter event, the Norwich junior hurdler was joined by Riley Marsh on the podium as she placed sixth in the event. Just missing a spot was Norwich Sophomore Sydney Coggins, coming in seventh behind Marsh by two-tenths of a second.
Marsh, who also competed in the 100, 200 and as a member of Norwich’s 4x100 meter relay team, placed in all four events for the Tornado for a total of 11 points in the meet.
Miranda Cole, Norwich’s young sprinter, took second in both the 100 and 200 meter events. Cole came across the finish line behind Vestal’s Tia Jones – a New York State Champion in both events several time over her career – with just tenths of a second separating the two runners.
Also placing in for Norwich in their events were Lucie Martin (800 and the long jump), Angela Carlson with a second-place finish in the high jump and the Tornado’s 4x800 relay team that finished sixth in the event.
“Overall, the boys all had great performances with a lot of personal records set today,” said Shaun Horan, Norwich’s head coach. “We the few injuries our girls team is battling, we decided to focus on individual performances, which paid off with the wins we had as well as several people placing.”
Next on the Tornado’s schedule is the Section IV State Qualifying meet, which will be held at Union-Endicott on Wednesday, May 29. Events are scheduled to start is still to be determined at this time but will be announced later this week.