ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Cortland women's indoor track and field team finished eighth in the team standings and combined with Geneseo to give the SUNYAC a second place two-team finish at the Nazareth College Conference Challenge Cup.
 
The meet featured 10 schools - two each from the SUNYAC (Cortland/Geneseo), Liberty League (Rochester/Ithaca), Empire 8 (Nazareth/St. John Fisher), Landmark (Susquehanna/Scranton) and MAC (Stevens/Misericordia). In the individual team standings, Cortland ended with 37 points. Geneseo won the individual team title with 143 points. As conference duos, the Liberty League won with 192.50 points, followed by the SUNYAC (180), Empire 8 (112), MAC (101.5) and Landmark (55).
 
Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima) won the high jump with an AARTFC qualifying and meet and facility record height of 1.62 meters (5' 3.75"). Two other Red Dragons met AARTFC standards. Becca Bready (Rochester/Gates Chili) was fourth in the pole vault at 3.20 meters (10' 6") and Autumn Pittman (Spring Valley/Ramapo) finished sixth in the 60-meter dash in 8.08 seconds (8.06 prelims). Bready's pole vault is currently tied for first in the SUNYAC.
 
Marlee Angus (Penfield) and Kristin Ieva (North Babylon) each scored points in the mile run. Angus was third in 5:26.11 and Ieva finished fifth in 5:31.56. Pittman registered a sixth-place finish in the 200-meter dash (26.87) and Sarah Parr (Cooperstown) was sixth in the weight throw (13.83 meters/45' 4.5"). Rounding out Cortland's team scorers were a trio of eighth-place finishers - Elizabeth Liriano (New York/Manhattan Ctr. for Science and Math) in the 400-meter dash (1:01.81), Mariah Saggese (Oneonta/Milford) in the high jump (1.47 meters/4' 9.75"), and Megan Spencer (Somers) in the weight throw (13.47 meters/44' 2.5").
 
Cortland will compete at the Ithaca Bomber Invitational next Saturday and Sunday.

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

After a long first week of classes and a hard segment of training, there's a lot to be happy about from some fairly tired Red Dragons.
 
This week, I'll probably emphasize where we are by group. For the throwers, the breakthrough performances would probably have come from Suzy Conners in the weight, and Nick LaRocque in the shot put. Both added significant distance to their PRs, and competed quite well in those events. Moving to the jumps, Danielle Fisk not only won the high jump competition, but had a significant PR in the long jump, while Becca Bready improved on her season's best in the pole vault with not only a strong clearance at 3.20 (10'6"), but also some great attempts at 3.35 (10' 11.75"), which is certainly exciting for only the third meet of her college career!
 
On the track for the sprints the highlights that might not show up as easily on the scoreboard would be Matthew Schaffert, who posted a big PR in the 200 after tying his PR in the 60; teammate Maris Seabury posted PRs in both her 200 and 400 efforts. It was nice that at the end of the day, six different women's team members posted season bests in the 200, with four posting college bests in the event!
 
In the distance events, I'd like to make mention of Tom Adamescu in his section of the 5000 meter race. Tom really led not only his group but also the entire race for a large potion of the event, and was narrowly outkicked over the final lap. Without his work up front, I'm not sure the rest of his teammates in the race would have posted results that were quite as strong, so we greatly appreciate how he took charge this morning.  Rachel Castello deserves similar recognition for her efforts in the 3000 meter race at the end of the day. She had to make a couple of hard decisions at points in the race to make some significant moves to stay connected to the race, or even to move to the front of the group. Rachel, like Tom, seemed to make just about all the right decisions out there today, and it benefited not only her, but also her team.
 
As we settle a bit more into the routine of being in classes again, we look forward to returning to Ithaca College this weekend.