CORTLAND, N.Y. – The Cortland men's outdoor track and field team recorded seven first-place finishes and 15 All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) qualifying performances at the two-day Cortland Outdoor Classic. Cortland was also scheduled to send athletes to Princeton University on Friday but did not when the meet there was condensed to a Saturday meet due to the weather.

David Bernstein (Norwich) won the hammer throw with an AARTFC qualifying distance of 55.79 meters (183' 0"). Tyler Hochadel (Hamburg/Frontier) finished seventh out of 38 competitors with an AARTFC qualifying distance of 47.67m (156' 5").

In the 800 meters, the Red Dragons recorded five top-10 finishes in a field of 47. Richard Samuels (Wallkill) won the event in 1:53.88, James Forte (Merrick/Sanford H. Calhoun) finished second in 1:54.51, and Nolan Vest (Coram/Longwood) finished third in 1:55.88, with all three times AARTFC qualifying performances. Clayton Santiago (Bethpage) placed eighth in 1:58.20, followed by Hunter Braun (Victor) in 10th at 1:58.99.

Two relay units finished first in their respective events. Kai Bryant (Brookyln/H.S. of Enterprise Business and Tech), Liam Joyce (Dryden), Brent DiVittorio (Brewster), and Chjuvaughn Cameron (Riverhead) won the 4x100-meter relay in 42.81 seconds. The 4x400-meter relay unit of Luke Updegraff (Mechanicsburg, PA/Cumberland Valley), Ricky Castello (New Rochelle), Michael Eubanks (Islip) and Austen Johnson (Jamestown) finished first in 3:23.34. Both of those times were AARTFC qualifying marks.

Storm Malone (Highland) won the 110-meter hurdles with an AARTFC qualifying time of 14.99 seconds. Johnson placed first in the 400-meter hurdles with an AARTFC qualifying time of 55.81 seconds, with Aidan Farrell (Bloomingburg/Pine Bush) fourth at 57.08 seconds.

In the triple jump, C.J. White (Middletown) won the event out of 24 competitors, reaching an AARTFC qualifying distance of 14.63 meters (48' 0"). Wendell Brand (Sleepy Hollow) also hit an AARTFC qualifying distance, finishing third at 14.13 meters (46' 4.25").

Four Red Dragons finished in the top 10 in a field of 57 in the 200-meter dash. Joyce was Cortland's top finisher placing second with an AARTFC qualifying time of 22.11 seconds. Samuels was seventh in 22.79 seconds, followed by Cameron in eighth in 22.82 seconds and DiVittorio 10th at 22.88 seconds.

Other AARTFC qualifying performances included a third-place finish by Dane Sorensen (Warwick/Warwick Valley) in the pole vault at a height of 4.70 meters (15' 5"), Joyce finishing third in the 100-meter dash at 10.92 seconds, and Cole Clemons (Ithaca) placing fifth out of 43 competitors in the discus throw at 41.20 meters (135' 2"). Cameron was fourth in the 100-meter dash in 11.14 seconds, just missing the AARTFC standard of 11.10 seconds.

In the 1,500-meter run, the Red Dragons recorded four top-10 finishes out of 50 competitors. Forte placed third (4:02.71), Cabel McCandless (Lindenhurst) placed fifth (4:03.91), Braun finished eighth (4:07.78) and Santiago was ninth (4:09.28).

Brandon Nugent (Middletown) and Brand each placed third in their respective events. Nugent was third out of the field of 26 in the javelin throw with a distance of 45.63 meters (149' 8") while Brand was third of 31 competitors in the long jump with a distance of 6.62 meters (21' 8.75"). White placed 10th in the long jump at 6.37 meters (20' 10.75").

In a field of 43 in the 400-meter dash, three Red Dragons finished in the top 10. Chris Moore (Neponsit/Avon Old Farms) was Cortland's top finisher in fifth at 51.11 seconds, Castello was seventh at 51.19 seconds, and Updegraff was eighth at 51.31 seconds.

Zach Kashmer (Chili/Churchville-Chili) was Cortland's top performer in the high jump, placing fifth with a height of 1.78 meters (5' 10"). Hunter Keil (Camden) also reached 1.78 meters (5' 10") but finished seventh due to misses.

Hochadel finished seventh in the shot put at 13.67 meters (44' 10.25") while Bryan Finn (Fonda/Fonda-Fultonville) finished 10th at 12.39 meters (40' 7.75"). Finn also placed 10th in the discus throw with a distance of 38.93 meters (127' 8").

Chad Dunham (Central Square/Paul V. Moore) and Michael Verde (Hopewell Junction/Arlington) finished eighth and ninth, respectively, in the 5,000-meter run. Dunham finished with a time of 16:19.57 followed by Verde shortly after with a time of 16:19.68.  Dan Gross (East Moriches/Center Moriches) placed ninth in the 10,00-meter run in 34:53.97.

The Red Dragons will host the CNY College Challenge on Tuesday, April 23, at 3 p.m.

(Recap by Cortland sports information intern John Nocco)

Complete Results:
Men
Women

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

Wow!  We're incredibly lucky to have, for the most part, avoided bad weather this weekend!  For the most part we had nice favorable winds and warm temperatures.  We did see some rain, but not enough to impact most of our events.  A great deal of thanks goes to our athletic department, the sport management program, the great folks at Leone Timing, and the officiating crew that pulled together to make the meet run smoothly.  We had 20 teams in attendance this weekend, so it is no small undertaking to pull off this sort of an enterprise!
 
Our short sprints turned in a pretty terrific day, with freshmen Taylor Hunter and Stefany Batista having some great runs in the 100 and 200, along with surprise speedster Maya Campbell in the 100!  Sweeping the first three spots of the 100 was pretty remarkable!  For the men's squad, nearly everybody ran either a lifetime or a season's best in the 100 and 200 – it's great to see the hard work paying off and people taking advantage of the warmer conditions.
 
We're fortunate to be able to have a combined-event competition over this weekend.  For the ladies, Ali Galus had a great weekend with individual event PRs and an overall PR in the heptathlon.  It's a grueling two days, so any time you can be better than ever before that's a pretty nice achievement!  Molly Baker had a great first-time score as a freshman, and has a better idea of how to attach day 2 now.  Our other three multi-events didn't have the best weekend necessarily – Kim White fouled out of javelin and Jesse Haynes didn't clear a bar in pole vault, but both still scored enough to qualify for the SUNYAC Championships.  Kellen Martin was having a pretty great weekend early, but was experiencing some issues with an injury – thankfully he already had enough points as well that he could withdraw from the competition and still be qualified for the SUNYAC championships.  We're excited for what the future potentially holds moving forward for this event group.
 
Of course I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that we had not one but two new school records set this weekend – both Cat Lutjen (javelin) and Harley Buczkowski (hammer throw) surpassed their own school records this weekend.  Being the best Red Dragon ever at something is a pretty cool achievement; to set the mark like that on the same day as a teammate does in incredibly special!
 
Probably the best part of the weekend wasn't our teams achievements, but rather the privilege we had in hosting the Cortland Stars at our meet on Saturday morning.  The Cortland Stars are a local team of Special Olympians who train with the SUNY Cortland Special Olympics Club.  These athletes came to the Stadium Complex today and competed as hard as any of the collegians in attendance in the 50m dash, the 100m dash, the long jump, the softball throw, and the 4x100m relay.  For the relay, they were joined by not only our team, but also members of SUNY Cortland's football team and field hockey team, which was amazing!  Furthermore, teams from SUNY Cobleskill and SUNY Fredonia also joined us, which made the event incredible!  It's inspiring to see any athletes out there working hard and loving this sport!