UTICA, N.Y. – The Cortland women's indoor track and field team posted six top-eight scoring finishes at the Utica College Winter Opener.
 
The Red Dragons placed 12 out of 16 schools in the final team standings with 26 points. St. John Fisher won the team crown with 111.5 points, followed by RPI (74.5) and St. Lawrence and Siena (65 each).
 
Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima) and Kimmy Arena (West Islip) each earned runner-up showings during the meet. Fisk was second in the high jump with a regional qualifying height of 1.59 meters (5' 2.5") and Arena placed second in the pole vault at 2.90 meters (9' 6.25"). Fisk actually was tied for the best height in the high jump, but she finished second officially due to total number of misses.
 
Elizabeth Liriano (New York/Manhattan Ctr. for Science and Math) was third out of 24 runners in the 400 meters in 1:03.25. Avery Hebert (Stillwater) finished eighth in 1:05.96. In the long jump, Devin Griffin (Medina) placed seventh of 25 at 4.77 meters (15' 7.75") and Abby McDowell (Tappan/Tappan Zee) was eighth at 4.68 meters (15' 4.25"). Matteson Donnelly (Pearl River) just missed the scoring column in the event with a ninth-place distance of 4.63 meters (15' 2.25").
 
McDowell narrowly missed the top eight in the 200-meter dash, finishing ninth out of 42 competitors in 28.26 seconds. Liriano was 11th in the event at 28.35 seconds, followed by Kitty Tang (Staten Island/CSI H.S. for International Studies) in 13th (28.65). Vanessa Burkard (Newfane) finished 10th of 44 in the mile run (5:36.90), Katherine McDowell (Tappan/Tappan Zee) was 11th in the 400 meters (1:07.00), and Liz Spencer (Somers) finished 11th of 29 in the weight throw (12.25 meters/40' 2.25") and 12th of 31 in the shot put (9.44 meters/30' 11.75").
 
Cortland returns to action next Saturday at the Brockport Invitational. That meet replaces an originally scheduled quad meet at Ithaca that has been 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.