BROCKPORT, N.Y. - Cortland recorded six top-three all-league finishes, including a repeat league title by Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima) in the high jump, and the Red Dragons finished third out of nine schools at the SUNYAC Women's Indoor Track and Field Championships.
 
Geneseo won the team title with 275.5 points, followed by Brockport with 130.5 and Cortland with 95.5. Oneonta and Buffalo State tied for fourth place with 49 points each, and rounding out the field were Plattsburgh (37.5), Fredonia (15), Potsdam (4) and Oswego (3).
 
Fisk captured the high jump title with a height of 1.62 meters (5' 3.75"). Mariah Saggese (Oneonta/Milford) tied for second in the event at 1.57 meters (5' 1.75").
 
Kendall Sobczyk (Wheatfield/Niagara Wheatfield) placed second in the 60-meter dash in 7.96 seconds (7.95 prelims) and Elizabeth Liriano (New York/Manhattan Ctr. for Science and Math) was second in the 400-meter dash in 58.70 seconds. Becca Bready (Rochester/Gates Chili) finished second in the pole vault (3.35 meters/10' 11.75") and Autumn Pittman (Spring Valley/Ramapo) was third in the 60-meter dash (7.97).
 
All-league honors go to the top three places in each event. Winners are first team, runners-up are second team, and third-place finishers are third team.
 
Liriano also finished fourth in the 200-meter dash (25.91) and Marlee Angus (Penfield) was fourth in the mile run (5:18.77). Cortland placed fourth in both relays, with Avery Hebert (Stillwater), Maris Seabury (Old Chatham/Ichabod Crane), Helena Trackey (Glens Falls) and Yasmine Peralta (Monroe/Monroe-Woodbury) finishing in 4:10.41 in the 4x400-meter relay and the Distance Medley Relay team of Kristin Ieva (North Babylon), Trackey, Savannah Adami (Guilderland) and Sydney Smith (Greenville) clocking in at 13:01.15.
 
AnJalyna Talmadge (Pine Bush) finished fifth in the 60-meter hurdles (9.61) and seventh in the high jump (1.47 meters/4' 9.75"). Sarah Parr (Cooperstown) was fifth in the weight throw (15.16 meters/49' 9") and Abby McDowell (Tappan/Tappan Zee) placed fifth in the triple jump (10.50 meters/34' 5.5").
 
Cortland notched two sixth-place showings - Kimmy Arena (West Islip) in the pole vault (2.90 meters/9' 6.25") and Regan Kaiser (Glens Falls) in the pentathlon (2,613 points). Kaiser's top point-scoring events were the 800 meters (642 points, 2:34.12) and the high jump (599 points, 1.48 meters/4' 10.25").
 
Fisk was seventh in the long jump (5.18 meters/17' 0"), Hebert placed seventh in the 400-meter dash (1:01.88, 1:01.73 prelims), Lauren Anderson (Saratoga Springs) was seventh in the 60-meter hurdles (9.86), and Rebecca Salim (White Plains) finished seventh in the triple jump (10.28 meters/33' 8.75"). Rounding out Cortland's point scorers was Faith Hoyt (Pittsford/Pittsford Mendon) with a tie for eighth place in the pole vault (2.75 meters/9' 0.25").
 
Cortland will compete at the All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) Indoor Championships Friday and Saturday, March 3-4, at The Armory in New York City. Cortland's AARTFC qualifiers during the SUNYAC Championships were:
 
Angus, Mile
Bready, Pole Vault
Fisk, High Jump
Alyssa LaBelle, 60-meter dash (ninth place, 8.07)
Liriano, 400-meter dash and 200-meter dash
Parr, Weight Throw
Pittman, 60-meter dash
Saggese, High Jump
Sobczyk, 60-meter dash
DMR (Ieva, Trackey, Adami, Smith)
 
Final Team Scores:
1) Geneseo - 275.5
2) Brockport - 130.5
3) Cortland - 95.5
T4) Oneonta - 49
T4) Buffalo State - 49
6) Plattsburgh - 37.5
7) Fredonia - 15
8) Potsdam - 4
9) Oswego - 3

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

This was a really fun two days! While both teams finished in the same place as last year, it's great to have measurable progress and improvement with what we are doing relative to the rest of the conference – especially on the women's side, where we were 50% over last year's point total!
 
I know that our sports information department will do an excellent job of combing the results for some major finishes, so I want to take a few moments to highlight results that might not show up in the statistics. The 2 – 3 finish by Kendall Sobczyk and Autumn Pittman was great – especially since both broke the 8-second barrier in both trials and finals – but the real story is the poise that both ladies exhibited in the final. The 60m final can be notorious for nerves, but Kendall ran .01 seconds off her personal best, and Autumn ran a personal best in the finals! It's also worth noting that Alyssa LaBelle had a huge PR in the trials, and nearly was able to advance to the finals; she also had one of the strongest 200s of her career.
 
Obviously Liz Liriano had herself a weekend in both of her events, but it's also important to note how well Maris Seabury did – posting nearly a 2-second PR in the 400 is pretty remarkable, and certainly something to celebrate! We had wonderful success outperforming our ranking going into the event, which was a wonderful way to perform!
 
Our long distance ladies certainly put together a great weekend that won't necessarily show up in the scoreboard; in particular our competitors in the 5k – Khalifah Tracey, Adreinne Martin, Devin Reilly, and Deirdre Sullivan – all ran significant PRs. We had a great trend of racing both smart and tough!
 
We saw great progress in a number of our field events – having two ladies in the finals for the triple jump (Abby McDowell and Rebecca Salim) and the weight throw (Sarah Parr and Meg Spencer) are good indicators of progress; scoring three in both of the vertical jumps is something that we are quite proud of. I'll make special mention of Faith Hoyt (in pole vault) and Mariah Saggese (in high jump), as both were out with significant illness early in the week and fought through to compete well this weekend. And last – but not least – Regan Kaiser had another outstanding combined-event competition, setting lifetime PRs in 3 of the events on Friday, and finishing with a nearly 100-point overall PR to earn 6th overall.
 
On the men's side, we certainly struggled at times with expectations to perform well, but hopefully we can learn that focusing on that rarely helps lead to great performances. Don't get me wrong – we certainly had some stellar efforts on the day!
 
Friday was pretty exciting to claim two individual titles – but to go 1 -2 in the men's weight throw, along with Zach Nyhart having a massive PR in the pole vault that moved him well up the NCAA qualifying list, as well as into a tie for the #2 spot all-time at Cortland. He put together a great night of vaulting which was really fun to see! Scoring three in the men's triple was great as well, especially since Jean Sassine was able to improve on his lifetime best (and national seed time). Aaron Jones ran a great preliminary round of the hurdles on Friday, as did firstyear Matt Schaffert, in what was probably his breakthrough race of the year.
 
On Saturday, we saw a number of excellent performances as well! We've had a lot of pride in our high hurdling over the past few years, so scoring more than half of the points available in the event – including a 1 – 2 finish – is a wonderful accomplishment. We showed up to compete on the track in the finals today, with great depth in the 200, 400, 800, and mile events. Our top three finishers in the 800 (Cam Szabo, Clay Santiago, and Nate Wilsoncroft) all hit PRs; Cam and Harry Tomasi hit PRs in the mile earlier in the day as well! In the 200 and 400 we scored a total of 34 points – which was the top in the conference – without 'doubling' anybody in both events. That's important for us to not only be able to run a solid 4x400 relay, but also for our ability to compete next weekend a the regional meet and hopefully at the NCAA Championships. We were very happy to have two guys score well in the long jump, but it was especially great to see Hagie Sesay have 4 of his jumps better his previous PR – with his furthest leap being over 8 inches better! And just like with Regan in the Pentathlon, the men had a combined-event athlete who did extremely well over the course of the day, as Nik Knobloch posted PRs in 5 of the events in the heptathlon, leading to an overall PR of over 150 points to earn 5th place over the weekend.
 
I'm quite proud of what we did as a program over the weekend – not just how we competed, but how we handled adversity, how we represented Cortland, and how we supported each other. We make the trip the New York City this upcoming weekend for the AARTFC Regional Championships, with an eye to the NCAA Championships the following weekend in Birmingham, Alabama.