DELAWARE, OHIO - Three SUNY Cortland long jumpers and the Red Dragons' 4x400-meter relay team competed during the opening day of action at the NCAA Div. III Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championships, hosted by Ohio Wesleyan University.

Three Red Dragons finished in the top 13 out of 20 entrants in the long jump. Sophomore Josh Daves (Huntington) placed 10th with a distance of 6.87 meters (22' 6.5"). He missed All-America honors, which go to the top eight finishers, by just four inches. Freshman Tim Scheftic (Dryden) finished 11th at 6.84 meters (22' 5.25") and junior Tomas Velasquez (Catskill) placed 13th at 6.74 meters (22' 1.5"). Paul Turner of LaVerne (Calif.) won the event at 7.17 meters (23' 6.25").

In the 4x400-meter relay, sophomore Eric Banks (Westbury), junior Zac Farnham-Haskell (Essex Junction, VT/Essex), senior Phill Wiltshire (Vestal) and senior Gino Bisceglia (Norwood/Norwood-Norfolk) finished 13th out of 16 teams in the preliminaries in 3:16.51. Only eight teams advanced to Saturday's finals.

The Red Dragons were hampered by a collision between a group of runners during a handoff between the second and third relay legs in their heat. Cortland entered the event with the fifth-best qualifying time (3:13.22).

On Friday, Bisceglia will compete in the 400-meter dash preliminaries at 7 p.m. and junior Ryan Pericozzi (Lancaster) will compete in the pole vault at 5:30 p.m.

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