UTICA, N.Y. – The Cortland men's indoor track and field team, behind the strength of five individual wins, finished in first place out of 16 schools at the Utica College Winter Opener.
 
The Red Dragons amassed 137 team points, 12 ahead of runner-up RPI. Utica (75.5), St. Lawrence (73.5) and Hamilton (50) rounded out the top five. Cortland scored 114 of its 137 points in five events - 31 in the 200-meter dash, 29 in the long jump, 22 in the 400 meters, 18 in the pole vault and 14 in the 60-meter hurdles.
 
Aaron Jones (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) led six scoring finishes in the 200 meters with his regional qualifying winning time of 22.32 seconds out of 50 competitors. Coltrane Goring (Los Angeles, CA/Notre Dame) was the second-best collegiate finisher in 22.98 seconds, with Hagie Sesay (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) fourth (23.52), Justin Schrom (Richmondville/Cobleskill-Richmondville) fifth (23.53), Malachi Williams (New Haven, CT/Amistad Academy) sixth (23.66) and Craig Denton (Albertson/Herricks) eighth (23.69).
 
Five Red Dragons combined for the 29 long jump points. Sesay won the event at 6.46 meters (21' 2.5"), followed by Brett Morse (Saratoga Springs) in second at 6.37 meters (20' 10.75"). Amarian Hughes (Marlboro) placed fourth (6.35 meters/20' 10"), Roland Zanger (Port Jervis) was fifth (6.29 meters/20' 7.75") and Elijah Craddock (Norwich) finished seventh (6.16 meters/20' 2.5") in the 21-jumper field.
 
Rich Samuels (Wallkill) won the 400 meters with a regional qualifying time of 51.00 seconds. Goring placed third in 51.72 seconds, Schrom was fifth in 52.48 seconds, and Doug Knapp (Brooklyn/Xaverian) finished seventh in 52.61 seconds.
 
Morse took top honors in the 60-meter hurdles with his regional qualifying time of 8.51 seconds. Brandon Root (Bellmore/John F. Kennedy) placed fifth in the event at 9.14 seconds (8.90 prelims). Zach Nyhart (Hamburg) was the top collegiate finisher in the pole vault with a height of 4.25 meters (13' 11.25"), while Sam Haaland (Shokan/Onteora) earned second-place points with his clearance of 3.95 meters (12' 11.5").
 
Zanger was the runner-up in the high jump at 1.79 meters (5' 10.5"). Mitchell Makowski (Webster/Webster Thomas) earned third-place finishes in both the weight throw (13.53 meters/44' 4.75") and the shot put (13.23 meters/43' 5"), and Ryan Cory (Beacon) qualified for regionals in the mile run with his sixth-place time of 4:22.14.
 
Cortland will compete next Saturday at the Brockport Invitational. The Red Dragons were originally scheduled to be part of a quad meet at Ithaca on that date, but that meet was canceled.

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

It was nice to open our 2022 competitive season earlier today!
 
We made the trip to Utica with specific 'process' goals for each event for the team members to work on. We weren't concerned with the overall performance, which considering how hard the team has been working, would have been detrimental. We were certainly tired, but in a good way.
 
We had good progress across the board with Red Dragons executing specific technique points and areas of emphasis, which led to some very impressive performances! Possibly the most exciting performance of the day was Mitch Makowski with a big lifetime best in the shot put! Hagie Sesay had a great series in long jump, where he was very consistent with his approach and takeoff mechanics through all six attempts, which is great to build a foundation for some big jumps down the road. We showed a lot of good depth, especially in the 200, 400, mile, and long jump today with the men's team. Liz Liriano deserves mention as she had a strong double in the 200 and 400 today; I'm quite pleased with how well the women's team executed what we have been working on especially in the blocks and on the runway for long jump. The Lady Red Dragons did a lot of great work today to create the foundation for success in meets as we get past the hard training phase we are in right now.
 
We have a final week of double-sessions before classes begin, and a nice chance to continue to work on our process next weekend at Brockport.