Plenty of team and individual athletic success was sprinkled among Catholic high schools in the diocese this spring. Among the noteworthy accomplishments:
- Elmira Notre Dame’s Jon Leseur and Luke DeLuccia earned the Section 4 Class B boys’ tennis doubles championship. That duo won 6-4, 6-0 over Steve Yurenda and Andy Fox of Chenango Valley in the title match, leading the Crusaders to a second-place team finish among 12 schools.
- McQuaid Jesuit golfers had an outstanding post-season, beginning with the Section 5 tournament that saw Alex Bourdelais finish fourth, Ben Kircher tie for sixth and Andrew Lane place ninth. All three qualified for the state tournament, where they helped Section 5 to a first-place finish as Lane and Kircher finished seventh and eighth, respectively.
- McQuaid boys’ tennis reached the Section 5 Class A final on the strength of a 5-2 semifinal win over No. 3 Victor. The second-seeded Knights then fell 7-0 to top-seeded Brighton, finishing with a record of 15-4.
- Hannah Brackley led the Elmira Notre Dame girls’ track team to a second-place finish at the Section 4 Class D championships. Brackley won the 400- and 200-meter runs, and was also part of the winning 1,600 relay for the Crusaders.
- Additional sectional track champions, all in Section 5, were: Bishop Kearney boys — Quentin Gause (400), Jordan Gause (shot put) and the 400 relay in Class CC; BK girls — Nathena Brown (pentathlon) in Class CC; Aquinas Institute boys — Garrett Boehmer (pole vault), Joseph Howe (long jump) and Jamahl Pardner (pentathlon) in Class B; AQ girls — Kathryn Perry (discus) and the 400 relay in Class B; Our Lady of Mercy girls — Jaimi Miller (discus, shot put) in Class A.
