ITHACA, N.Y. – The Cortland men's indoor track and field team returned from its mid-semester break by competing at the Cornell University Upstate Challenge. The meet, which basically featured seven Division I schools along with Cortland, Ithaca and the University of Toronto, was primarily conducted on Saturday, with the first four events of the hepthatlon taking place on Friday.
 
Peyton Lalone (Ogdensburg/Ogdensburg Free Academy) recorded one of the best times nationally in Division III this year with his winning effort in the 200-meter dash. He bested 22 other competitors in 22.28 seconds, which ranks fifth nationally and second in the All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) as of late Saturday night. Lalone also finished fifth of 18 in the 60-meter dash in 7.05 seconds (7.04 prelims), which is also an AARTFC qualifier.
 
Two other Red Dragons made the finals in the 60-meter dash. Kai Bryant (Brooklyn/H.S. of Enterprise Business and Tech.) was seventh in 7.24 seconds (7.20 prelims) and Liam Joyce (Dryden) placed eighth in 7.32 seconds (7.17 prelims).
 
Ryan Konotopskyj (East Amherst/Williamsville North) finished seventh out of 24 runners in the mile in 4:28.83 and Austen Johnson (Jamestown) was fourth of 14 in the 400 meters (52.27). Three Cortland runners finished in the top half of the 18-competitor field in the 800 meters. Richard Samuels (Wallkill) finished sixth (2:01.40), James Forte (Merrick/Sanford H. Calhoun) was seventh (2:01.64) and Hunter Braun (Victor) placed ninth (2:04.33).
 
In field events, Dane Sorensen (Warwick/Warwick Valley) tied for third out of 12 in the pole vault at 4.35 meters (14' 3.25") and Ryan Lawless (Commack) tied for fifth at 4.20 meters (13' 9.25"). Wendell Brand (Sleepy Hollow) finished fifth in the long jump with a distance of 6.17 meters (20' 3").
 
Two Red Dragons met AARTFC standards in the heptathlon. Zach Kashmer (Chili/Churchville-Chili) finished fourth with 4,491 points and Isaiah Brooks (Minoa/East Syracuse Minoa) was fifth with 4,470 points. They each eclipsed the 700-point mark in three different events. Kashmer scored 728 points in the 60-meter hurdles (9.08) and 726 points in the 60-meter dash (7.47), and Brooks had 750 points in the 60-meter hurdles (8.98) and 736 points in the 60-meter dash (7.43), while both scored 714 points in the high jump (1.90 meters/6' 2.75").
 
Cortland will send competitors next Saturday to both the Cornell Kane Invitational and the Utica College Pioneer Open.

Complete Results (Women and Men)

Coach's Corner - Comments from Head Coach Steve Patrick:

The hardest thing about this meet is for the team to understand that they are tired, and not physically able to really perform at a high level yet.  That's hard to accept sometimes, and people can end up a little frustrated when they shouldn't be.  A lot of these folks have been hard at work for two weeks and just need some time to recover.  That's OK for now though, as we are just working on building a big base for our conditioning and working on technical skills.
 
The men's short sprinters had a really strong day in the 60 and 200 – while it's easy to highlight how well Peyton Lalone did in the 200, the other three guys (Kai Bryant, Chjuvaughn Cameron and Liam Joyce) had technically sound races, and were all pretty close to their lifetime bests!  The top Lady Red Dragons in the 200 had pretty similar results – while freshmen Taylor Hunter and Steffany Batista, along with junior Kelly Gardner didn't have lifetime bests, they all put together nice races that are a good indication that what we are making good progress towards our goals.
 
Pole vaulting went quite well today – not only did Dane Sorensen and Ryan Lawless have solid days in the open pole vault, but all three heptathletes (Isaiah Brooks, Zach Kashmer and Kellen Martin) jumped really well.  It's encouraging to see the team embracing the philosophies and techniques we are working on, and the success it is leading to!
 
It's hard to limit my comments to just a couple of events, as we are quite pleased with how things turned out today – we are also pretty thankful that Cornell stayed committed to running the meet today, and that they moved the schedule up by a couple of hours to allow teams to travel safely.  We're looking forward to having more of the team return tonight for training, our two opportunities to compete next weekend (at Utica College and at Cornell again), and surprisingly, for classes to start on the 28th!