UTICA, N.Y. – The Cortland women's indoor track and field team finished in fifth place out of 11 schools at the Utica College Invitational. The Red Dragons scored 63 points. RPI won the meet with 178 points, followed by Eastern Connecticut State (113), Utica (112), Siena (67) and Cortland in the top five.
 
The combination of Kelly Gardner (Lake Ronkonkoma/Sachem North), Taylor Hunter (Buffalo/Tapestry Charter), Elizabeth Liriano (New York/Manhattan Ctr. for Science and Math) and Jesse Correale (Staten Island/Notre Dame Academy) won the 4x200-meter relay in 1:51.55.
 
Hunter finished second in the 200-meter dash (26.99), and she recorded an AARTFC-qualifying time of 8.10 seconds to place third in the 60-meter dash. Correale was third in the 400-meter dash (1:02.59).
 
Emily Russell (Southold) tied for third place in the high jump, clearing 1.46 meters (4' 9.5"). Malley Bowen (Tioga) finished fourth in the 60-meter hurdles in 10.15 seconds (10.04 in prelims) and was sixth in the pole vault at 2.30 meters (7' 6.5").
 
Gardner placed fifth in the 200-meter dash (27.54) and Abigail McDowell (Tappan/Tappan Zee) was fifth in the long jump (4.84 meters/15' 10.5"). Lauren Anderson (Saratoga Springs) tied for fifth in the high jump (1.41 meters/4' 7.5") and Liriano was sixth in the 400-meter dash (1:04.29).
 
Also scoring for the Red Dragons were Becca Gresens (Webster/Webster Thomas) in seventh place in the pole vault (2.15 meters/7' 0.5") as well as eighth-place finishers Stephanie Kiluba (Kingston) in the 60-meter hurdles (10.54, 9.84 prelims), Kim White (Marathon) in the high jump (1.31 meters/4' 3.5") and Sarah Parr (Cooperstown) in the weight throw (12.02 meters/39' 5.25").
 
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!