CORTLAND, N.Y. – Junior Cat Lutjen (Sound Beach/Miller Place) and senior Harley Buczkowski (Holland Patent) each broke their own school records in the javelin and hammer throw, respectively, to highlight the Cortland women's outdoor track and field team's performances at the two-day Cortland Classic meet.

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.

Lutjen finished second out of 40 competitors in the javelin with a throw of 38.57 meters (126' 6"), breaking her old school record of 37.24 meters set last season. Buczkowski was third out of 40 in the hammer throw at 48.99 meters (160' 9"), best her old school record of 48.07 meters from 2017. Lutjen and Buczkowski each met All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) standards with their throws.

The 4x400-meter relay unit of Jesse Correale (Staten Island/Notre Dame Academy), Kaylee Uhl (Waverly), Shannon Imbornoni (Bethpage/Our Lady of Mercy Academy) and Steffany Batista (Spring Valley/Ramapo) won with an AARTFC qualifying time of 4:02.51. Maya Campbell (Valley Stream/Valley Stream South) won the 100-meter hurdles with an AARTFC qualifying time of 15.07 seconds and was runner-up in the triple jump, reaching an AARTFC qualifying distance of 11.37 meters (37' 3.75").

In the 100-meter dash, Cortland swept the top three podium spots as Taylor Hunter (Buffalo/Tapestry Charter) finished first in 12.37 seconds, followed by Campbell at 12.37 seconds and Batista at 12.45 seconds. Batista also won the 200-meter dash out of 46 competitors with a time 25.35 seconds, followed by Hunter in second at 25.37 seconds. All of these performances met AARTFC standards.

Other AARTFC qualifying performances included Uhl placing second in the 400-meter hurdles (1:07.92), Imbornoni placing fifth out of the field of 36 in the 800-meter run (2:18.86), and Nicole Van Pelt (Montgomery/Valley Central) placing fourth in the high jump at 1.55 meters (5' 1"). Two heptathletes also meet AARTFC standards – Molly Baker (Newark Valley) finished fourth of 16 with 3,732 points and Ali Galus (Buffalo/Buffalo Academy of the Sacred Heart) was seventh with 3,485 points. Baker scored 692 points in the 100-meter hurdles (16.18) and 666 points in the high jump (1.54 meters/5' 0.5"). Galus scored 689 points in the 100-meter hurdles (16.21) and 608 points in the 200-meter dash (28.29).

In the 5,000-meter run, Eliza Nichols (Smithtown/Smithtown West) was runner-up with a personal best time of 18:54.62. Madison Ciufetelli (Dix Hills/ Half Hollow Hills East) finished fourth out of the field of 13 in 19:06.95.

Kelly Gardner (Lake Ronkonkoma/Sachem North) recorded three top-10 finishes over the weekend. She placed eighth of 46 in the 200-meter dash (26.44), eighth of 28 in the triple jump (10.68 meters/35' 0.5"), and 10th of 24 in the long jump (4.72 meters/15' 6").

Campbell was Cortland's top performer in the long jump, placing fourth with a distance of 5.10 meters (16' 8.75"). Batista finished sixth out of 31 runners in the 400-meter dash at 1:01.04 and Bridget Bennett (Castleton/Maple Hill) was ninth in 1:02.61.

Out of a field of 45 in the 1,500-meter run, Courtney Maurin (Pine Bush) and Courtney Schoepflin (Chaffee/Pioneer) finished 17th and 18th, respectively. Maurin clocked in a final time of 5:14.89, followed by Schoepflin shortly after at 5:15.80.

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:
Women
Men

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!