BROCKPORT, N.Y. - Cortland won three individual events and posted 14 top-three all-league finishes and the Red Dragons finished second out of nine schools at the SUNYAC Men's Indoor Track and Field Championships.
 
Geneseo won the team title with 184 points, followed by Cortland with 155.5 and Brockport with 106.5. The remainder of the standings included Oneonta (66.5), Buffalo State (59), Fredonia (25.5), Plattsburgh (18), Oswego (7) and Potsdam (2).
 
Brett Morse (Saratoga Springs) won the 60-meter hurdles in 8.08 seconds, which is currently tied for third nationally in Division III, and he finished third in the 200-meter dash (22.29) and sixth in the long jump (6.70 meters/21' 11.75"). Zach Nyhart (Hamburg) tied a meet record in the pole vault by clearing 5.00 meters (16' 4.75"), which ranks him 11th nationally and moves him into second place on Cortland's all-time performers list in the event.
 
Mitchell Makowski (Webster/Webster Thomas) and Isaiah Brunache (Bennington, VT/Mount Anthony Union) each posted a distance of 16.14 meters (52' 11.5") in the weight throw. Makowski won the league title by virtue of his second-best distance (16.05 meters) compared to Brunache's (15.98 meters). Brunache also finished second in the shot put at 14.61 meters (47' 11.25"), with Makowski placing seventh (12.94 meters/42' 5.5").
 
Aaron Jones (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) was the runner-up in the 60-meter hurdles in 8.24 seconds (8.19 prelims). He ranks 22nd nationally in the event. Jones also was fourth in the 200-meter dash (22.45). Jean-Andre Sassine (Queens Village/The Lawrenceville School (NJ)) ranks 20th nationally in the triple jump after his runner-up distance of 14.38 meters (47' 2.25").
 
The 4x400-meter relay team of Evan Jensen (Red Hook), Douglas Knapp (Brooklyn/Xaverian), Harrison Gavalas (Southampton) and Coltrane Goring (Los Angeles, CA/Notre Dame) finished second in 3:18.50, which ranks 14th nationally. They lost by less than three tenths of a second to Geneseo (3:18.21), and both schools ran faster than the previous meet record of 3:20.47.
 
Jensen was second in the 200-meter dash (22.28) and Ryan Serp (Commack/Fayetteville-Manlius) placed second in the heptathlon (4,423 points). Serp scored 813 points in the 60-meter hurdles (8.70), 802 points in the 60-meter dash (7.23) and 682 points in the 1,000 meters (2:58.17). Goring was third in the 400-meter dash (49.66), Amarian Hughes (Newburgh/Marlboro) placed third in the triple jump (14.22 meters/46' 8"), and Roland Zanger (Port Jervis) tied for third in the high jump (1.85 meters/6' 0.75").
 
Cortland earned a total of 17 All-SUNYAC honors (13 individual and four relay runners). 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.
 
Hagie Sesay (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) was fourth in the long jump (6.85 meters/22' 5.75") and seventh in the triple jump (13.39 meters/43' 11.25"). Knapp placed fourth (50.04) and Gavalas was fifth (50.86) in the 400 meters, while Cameron Szabo (Owego/Owego Free Academy) finished fifth in the mile (4:17.96) and sixth in the 800 meters (1:56.30). Travis Iwuagwu (Suffern) turned in a fifth-place time in the 60-meter hurdles (8.75) and Nik Knobloch (New Paltz) was fifth in the heptathlon (4,052 points). Knobloch tallied 738 points in the 1,000 meters (2:52.64), 668 points in the 60-meter dash (7.64) and 666 points in the 60-meter hurdles (9.37).
 
Other Red Dragon scorers with top-eight finishes included: Matthew Schaffert (Lockport) in seventh place in the 60-meter dash (7.14, 7.07 prelims); Hunter Brignall (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) in seventh place in the 5,000 meters (15:19.87); and Clayton Santiago (Bethpage) in eighth place in the 800 meters (1:57.21). Due to a mix-up that had teams being told different orders for the legs of the Distance Medley Relay, the event was not included in the team scoring. Cortland finished in fifth place in the event as Nate Wilsoncroft (Horseheads), Austin Garske (Rocky Point), Mike Alvarez (New Windsor/Newburgh Free Academy) and Matt Mullen (Mastic/William Floyd) were timed in 10:42.61.
 
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:
 
Brignall, 5,000 meters
Brunache, Shot Put and Weight Throw
Austin Garske, 400-meter dash (ninth place, 51.17)
Gavalas, 400-meter dash
Goring, 400-meter dash
Hughes, Triple Jump
Jensen, 200-meter dash
Jones, 60-meter hurdles and 200-meter dash
Knapp, 400-meter dash
Knobloch, Heptathlon (and 60-meter hurdles during heptathlon)
Makowski, Weight Throw
Morse, 60-meter hurdles, 200-meter dash and Long Jump
Nyhart, Pole Vault
Santiago, 800 meters
Sassine, Triple Jump
Schaffert, 60-meter dash
Serp, Heptathlon (and 60-meter hurdles during heptathlon)
Sesay, Long Jump
Szabo, Mile and 800 meters
Harry Tomasi, Mile (ninth place, 4:22.97)
Wilsoncroft, 800 meters (10th place, 1:57.87)
4x400 relay (Jensen, Knapp, Gavalas, Goring)
 
(NOTE: Heptathlon at the AARTFC Championships is limited to top 12 qualifiers. As of Saturday night, Serp is ninth based on his performance at the SUNYAC Championships.)
 
Final Team Scores:
1) Geneseo - 184
2) Cortland - 155.5
3) Brockport - 106.5
4) Oneonta - 66.5
5) Buffalo State - 59
6) Fredonia - 25.5
7) Plattsburgh - 18
8) Oswego - 7
9) Potsdam - 2

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.