LEWISBURG, PA. – The Cortland women's outdoor track and field team finished with five All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) performances at the Bucknell University Bison Outdoor Classic. The two-day meet Saturday and Sunday featured numerous Division I and Division II schools.
 
The 4x100-meter relay unit of Kelly Gardner (Lake Ronkonkoma/Sachem North), Bridget Bennett (Castleton/Maple Hill), Steffany Batista (Spring Valley/Ramapo) and Taylor Hunter (Buffalo/Tapestry Charter) placed fifth out of 11 relay teams with an AARTFC time of 48.43 seconds.
 
Maya Campbell (Valley Stream/Valley Stream South) finished 16th out of a field of 29 in the triple jump at 11.07 meters (36' 4") and Kaylee Uhl (Waverly) also hit an AARTFC mark after placing 21st out of 37 runners in the 400-meter hurdles in 1:06.33.
 
Other AARTFC qualifying performances included Eliza Nichols (Smithtown/Smithtown West) placing 27th in the steeplechase in 11:34.15 and Shannon Imbornoni (Bethpage/Our Lady of Mercy Academy) finishing 46th out of 118 runners in the 800-meter run in 2:17.98.
 
In the 200-meter dash, Batista, Hunter and Gardner each recorded a top-25 finish out of 47 competitors. Batista finished 14th in 26.24 seconds, Hunter finished 18th in 26.41 seconds, and Gardner was 23rd in 26.52 seconds. Hunter was 17th of 50 in the 100-meter dash (12.67) and Campbell finished 16th in the 100-meter hurdles (15.87).
 
Cortland will host the Cortland Classic next Friday and Saturday, April 19-20, and is also scheduled to send competitors to the Princeton University Larry Ellis Invitational on Friday.

(recap by Cortland sports information intern John Nocco)

Complete Results

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

It's probably safe to say that our mid-distance and 100 meter athletes were the stars of the program at Bucknell this weekend.  

We were started off on Saturday evening with a bang as Taylor McClay had a collegiate best in the 1500; for the men Clayton Santiago, Hunter Braun, and Nolan Vest all had lifetime bests in the 1500!

We closed our competition on Saturday with a great 10k from Chad Dunham, which was also a new lifetime best effort.

On Sunday, both 4x100 relays had great performances to set the tone for the day!  While we have room to improve our baton passes still things are definitely moving in the right direction!

Our 800 squad really came through huge today.  Taylor McClay returned to race and was only a tenth of a second from a collegiate best; out next five runners all had lifetime or collegiate bests, including Shannon Imbornoni breaking 2:18, Clayton Santiago winning his heat and dipping under 1:59, a 1:56 for freshman Chris Moore, a 1:54 for James Forte, and a sub-1:53 for Richard Samuels in his first collegiate outdoor season.

If you look at the results, the 100m performances don't appear as impressive as they actually were.  The weather stopped cooperating after the 800s, so a lot of he meet became a struggle.  Most of the fields were about two tenths of a second slower than their season's best; Chjuvaughn Cameron and Taylor Hunter both ran significantly faster than what they have already done this season, which was very impressive!  Liam Joyce had a very solid performance as well, and both he and Chjuvaughn were impressive in the 200 as well!

We closed the weekend with a 4x800 relay for the men, which is an event we rarely do.  While the overall effort was great, and a lot of the credit will rightfully go to blistering anchor leg run by James Forte, I'd like to highlight how great the race of Nolan Vest was as well.  As our third leg Nolan made a huge move early to get into contact with two other teams that definitely helped put James into a position where he was able to out-duel their anchors.