ITHACA, N.Y. – The Cortland men's indoor track and field team opened its 2023-24 season Friday and Saturday at the Cornell University Greg Page Relays. 
 
Cortland recorded seven All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) qualifying performances at the meet, led by the 4x400-meter relay team of Douglas Knapp (Brooklyn/Xaverian), Harrison Gavalas (Southampton), Zion Cheatham (Lockport) and Evan Jensen (Red Hook) who finished second out of 17 entries, behind only a Cornell relay, in 3:22.54. Their time currently ranks fourth nationally in Division III. 
 
Brett Morse (Saratoga Springs) finished seventh overall and was the top Division III finisher in the 60-meter hurdles in 8.18 seconds. His prelim time of 8.16 seconds is currently fifth nationally. Aaron Jones (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) also posted an AARTFC time in the event with his 11th-place finish of 8.37 seconds. 
 
Isaiah Brunache (Bennington, VT/Mount Anthony Union) finished fourth of 23 in the shot put at 15.63 meters (51' 3.5"), an AARTFC mark that ranks seventh nationally. Amarian Hughes (Newburgh/Marlboro) was third of 22 in the long jump at 6.79 meters (22' 3.5"), Evan Collette (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) finished fourth of 22 in the weight throw at 15.83 meters (51' 11.25") and Matthew Schaffert (Lockport) placed sixth in the 60-meter dash in 7.01 seconds, all AARTFC qualifiers. 
 
Jensen finished second of 50 in the 300-meter dash in 34.51 seconds. Knapp ended in eighth place (35.31) and Cheatham was 10th (35.53). Cortland had six runners place in the top 10 out of 25 entries in the 3,000 meters. Adam Beach (Red Hook) was second in 8:53.85, Robert Davidson (Setauket/Ward Melville) was fifth in 9:04.05, Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) placed seventh in 9:09.21, Matthew Mullen (Medford/William Floyd) finished eighth in 9:09.54, Adam Schreiber (Williamson) was ninth in 9:15.18 and RJ Davis (Cicero/Cicero-North Syracuse) finished 10th in 9:18.13. 
 
In addition to Brunache, four other Cortland athletes placed in the top 10 in the shot put - Nick LaRocque (Millbrook) in sixth (14.23 meters/46' 8.25"), Collette in eighth (13.15 meters/43' 1.75"), Nick Kaires (St. James/Smithtown East) ninth (12.46 meters/40' 10.5") and Lucas Chamberlain (Copake/Taconic Hills) in 10th (12.40 meters/40' 8.25"). In the weight throw, Logan Darling (Homer) finished in sixth place (14.36 meters/47' 1.5"), Kaires was seventh (14.19 meters/46' 6.75") and Cabe Hogue (Corning/Corning Painted Post) finished eighth (14.08 meters/46' 2.5"). 
 
Also for the Red Dragons, Cameron Szabo (Owego/Owego Free Academy) finished fifth in the mile run (4:24.79) and Sam Hotaling (Amsterdam/Broadalbin-Perth) was fourth in the high jump (1.80 meters/5' 10.75").

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

Wow – lots of great things happening over the past two days for Cortland Track and Field!
 
Generally we did a very nice job of having the right plan and preparation for how we went about our business at our season opener. It's amazing how much doing the right thing in terms of fueling, warming up, staying focused, etc. matters to performance – while we weren't perfect in these areas, we were generally pretty good about them overall across the team.
 
Some wonderful performances to highlight: besides the new school record in the 300 by Evan Jensen, Doug Knapp ran a time that is now tied for 3rd All-Time with us. Firstyear Zion Cheatham's time was only .03 seconds behind Evan's PR from last season, so that is certainly an exciting measure of how our long sprints are doing on the men's side. For the women, Avery Hebert run herself into our All-Time top five list as well with a pretty massive PR in the 300. That was certainly an exciting result to see!
 
Also on the track, our women's 3000 showed some pretty strong strength with four women breaking the 11-minute barrier – that's a pretty strong measure of where the program is right now. All four of those ladies (Melissa Innocent, Alexa Wolcott, Adrienne Martin, and Sydney Smith) also posted new college PRs for the event. More important, how they chose to run the race was a great demonstration of skilled racing in the distance events.
 
The men's 3k had a pretty strong result as well, as we saw a number of men that committed to run the race plan we had mapped out for them, and performed at a high level, especially in the later half of the race. We again saw a number of folks who ran PRs over the distance, which is something we're quite thrilled about especially in the first competition of the year!
 
As long as we are speaking of PRs, it would be remiss to not point out that Anika Parnell (mile), Kendall Sobczyk (60), Faith Hoyt (pole vault), and Matt Schaffert (60) not only were our top performers in their respective events, but also set pretty significant PRs in the process.
 
The field events showed some pretty strong results as well over the weekend. In the men's Long Jump, Amarian Hughes had a nice progression and made good, consistent progress over all six of his attempts to finish with one of his better jumps ever. We're quite pleased with the adjustments he made and maturity he showed over the day.
 
But clearly the strongest event group over the two days was the men's weight throw – with six men breaking the 13-meter barrier, and four making into the finals led by firstyear Evan Collette, there's a great deal to be excited about, especially considering that none of that group are seniors. They've been a very diligent group about working both in the ring and in the weight room, and it is clearly paying off.
 
There were so many folks that had very strong results that unfortunately I don't have time or space to discuss here. However, it's good to keep in mind that means we are doing things well and moving in the right direction as a program!
 
We're looking forward to bringing a good-sized chunk of the team to Utica next weekend for the 'Utica Holiday Classic' before heading into final exams.