Corning's Johnson wins Empire Gold
THE LEADER STAFF

MT. VERNON - Corning's Albert Johnson out-jumped the competition by .08 meters on his way to capturing a gold medal in the scholastic long jump at the Empire State Games.

Johnson, a member of the Western team, won with a jump of 6.95 meters.

In other scholastic track and field action, Chris Jakobson, of Big Flats, took third in his semifinal heat of the boys scholastic 800 meters with a time of 2:01.62, and will also race in the finals.

On the woman's side, Bath's Lakeshia McCloud won the silver medal for the Western region in the scholastic jump with a leap of 10.97 meters.

Corning's Kate Early hurdled her way into the finals of both the 100 and 400 high hurdles in the open division for the Western team. Early finished second in each of her semifinal heats, with times of 15.95 and 1:06.1 being .0 and .11 seconds behind the winner of those heats respectively. She enters the finals of both races as the third seed.

At the archery range, Horseheads' Rasanga Abeyaratne, of the Central team, stand in second place of the 90 meter all-around, and holds sixth place in the 70 meter all-around.

In girls scholastic lacrosse the Western team dropped a pair of one-goal games on the opening day of play. In the first game, the Western squad gave up two goals in the final 1:18 of play to fall 7-6 to the Adirondak region. Corning East's Brittany Philip scored a goal to tie the game going into the half of the Western region's second game, but her squad fell 10-9 in overtime to the Central region.

On the wrestling mat, Horseheads' Justice Jones and Jayson Smith both made quick work of their opening opponents. Wrestling for the Central region at 139 lbs., Jones pinned Andy Anderson of the Western region in 21 seconds in a Greco-Roman match. Also competing in Greco-Roman, teammate Smith scored a pin in 18 seconds against Adirondack's David Alexandres in the 152 lb. weight class.