UTICA, N.Y. – The Cortland men's indoor track and field team won four events and earned second-place points in three other events on the way to a second-place finish at the 11-school Utica Invitational. RPI won the meet with 177.5 points, followed by Cortland with 128. Utica (76.5), Siena (54) and Le Moyne (52) rounded out the top five.
 
Wendell Brand (Sleepy Hollow) was the long jump champion at 6.72 meters (22' 0.75") and Brent DiVittorio (Brewster) won the 60-meter hurdles in 8.21 seconds – both AARTFC qualifying efforts. Two other Red Dragons notched AARTFC performances at the meet – David Bernstein (Norwich) with his fourth-place weight throw of 15.92 meters (52' 2.75") and Isaiah Brooks (Minoa/East Syracuse Minoa) with his second-place prelim time of 8.43 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles (he didn't compete in the finals).
 
Zach Kashmer (Chili/Churchville-Chili) won the pole vault with a height of 4.20 meters (13' 9.25") and was sixth overall (fifth collegiate finisher) in the long jump at 6.33 meters (20' 9.25"). Kashmer also was third in the 60-meter hurdles prelims in 8.76 seconds but did not run in the finals. Dane Sorensen (Warwick/Warwick Valley) matched Kashmer in the pole vault at 4.20 meters, but finished second officially since Kashmer cleared that height on his first try and Sorensen was successful on his second attempt.
 
The 4x200-meter relay team of DiVittorio, Jaheim Dotson (Coram/Longwood), Phil Louis-Juste (Spring Valley/North Rockland) and Noah Serrette (Valley Stream/Lawrence) finished first in 1:33.65. Dotson was second in the 500 meters (1:08.43), DiVittorio was the second collegiate finisher in the 200-meter dash (23.18), and Serrette finished seventh in the 500 meters (1:11.75).
 
Liam Joyce (Dryden) earned a third-place finish in the 60-meter dash (7.19) and was fourth overall (third collegiate finisher) in the 200-meter dash (23.29), and Cameron Szabo (Owego/Owego Free Academy) placed third in the 800 meters (1:59.80). Brett Morse (Saratoga Springs) was third in the 60-meter hurdles (8.85, 8.78 prelims), followed by Aaron Jones (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) in fourth place (9.06).
 
Three Red Dragons grabbed fifth-place finishes – Coltrane Goring (Los Angeles, CA/Notre Dame) in the 400-meter dash (52.84), Ryan Konotopskyj (East Amherst/Williamsville North) in the 1,000 meters (2:41.82), and Bryan Finn (Fonda/Fonda-Fultonville) in the shot put (12.82 meters/42' 0.75").
 
Nolan Vest (Coram/Longwood) finished sixth in the 1,000 meters (2:42.15) and the quartet of Kellen Martin (Salamanca/Cattaraugus-Little Valley), Szabo, Ryan Serp (Commack/Fayetteville-Manlius) and JP Incledon (Highland Mills/Monroe-Woodbury) placed sixth overall (fifth in scoring) in the 4x400-meter relay (3:40.93).
 
Also scoring for the Red Dragons were Alhagie Sesay (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) in the 400 meters (53.65) and Clayton Santiago (Bethpage) in the 1,000 meters (2:42.17).
 
Cortland returns to action next week at both the Cornell Upstate Challenge on Friday and Saturday and at a meet at Nazareth College on Saturday.

Complete Results

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

I'm not sure if it is easy to explain the level of fatigue that our team has right now!  For a lot of the team they have been putting in serious work in two-a-day practices.  We knew going into this meet that we were going to be fatigued, and that we weren't going to be at our best, so we stressed having good mental focus and emotional commitment to what we were working on.
 
I'm proud to be able to say that not only did we do a nice job in terms of our focus and effort, but we had some pretty strong performances as well!  A lot of positive steps were taken in terms of not only season's bests and/or placement on the SUNYAC performance list, but more importantly by laying the foundation for greater improvement as we move forward in the season.  The more things we can do right this early, the better!  This is the time of year we are trying to lay a strong foundation.
 
Since this is only their second chance at a meet, some big individual highlights to mention would be freshman Sarah Parr breaking 12 meters in the weight throw as well as freshman Stephanie Kiluba with a career best in the 60HH.  Classmate Cameron Szabo opened his college track and field career by being under 2 minutes in the 800, which is always a nice barrier to break through!  Winter session training is always pretty hard on the rookies since they don't really know what to expect!
 
We showed as great deal of depth in the long sprints for both teams, which got us off to a nice start on the day by sweeping the men's and women's 4 x 200 relays; as usual to 60HH, especially on the men's side, was a pretty deep event for us!
 
For the most part we will have a lighter week of training so we should start to have little more 'pop' when we are back in competition next weekend at Nazareth College and at Cornell University.
 
A really fun part of today – besides seeing all the Cortland Alumni that were coaching at the meet – was having the chance to see some recent alumni compete across a wide range of events.  It's a nice source of pride that the alumni in the meet were all atop the scoreboard in the events they competed in today!