ITHACA, N.Y. – Five event victories highlighted the Cortland men's indoor track and field team's performance at the Ithaca College Bomber Invitational Saturday and Sunday.
 
Brett Morse (Saratoga Springs) won the long jump at 6.73 meters (22' 1"), Jean-Andre Sassine (Queens Village/The Lawrenceville School (NJ)) won the triple jump with a distance of 13.90 meters (45' 7.25"), and Isaiah Brunache (Bennington, VT/Mount Anthony Union) finished first in the weight throw at 16.11 meters (42' 10.25"). All three performances were All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) qualifiers.
 
Cortland also won both relays with the same foursome. Evan Jensen (Red Hook), Douglas Knapp (Brooklyn/Xaverian), Harrison Gavalas (Southampton) and Coltrane Goring (Los Angeles, CA/Notre Dame) won the 4x200-meter relay in 1:29.89 and the 4x400-meter relay in an AARTFC time of 3:25.94.
 
Brunache finished second in the shot put (14.94 meters/49' 0.25"), Mitchell Makowski (Webster/Webster Thomas) was second in the weight throw (16.02 meters/52' 6.75"), Aaron Jones (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) placed second in the 60-meter hurdles (8.34), and Cameron Szabo (Owego/Owego Free Academy) finished second in the 800 meters (1:56.60), all with AARTFC efforts.
 
Six Red Dragons finished in the top nine with AARTFC times in the 200-meter dash. Goring was fourth in the field of 62 competitors at 22.56 seconds. Morse finished fifth (22.62), Jensen was sixth (22.64), Jones placed seventh (22.65), Knapp was eighth (22.71) and Gavalas finished ninth (22.87). Also hitting AARTFC marks were Zach Nyhart (Hamburg) in the pole vault (sixth place, 4.56 meters/14' 11.5") and Roland Zanger (Port Jervis) in the high jump (tied for fourth, 1.91 meters/6' 3.25").
 
Hagie Sesay (Buffalo/Hutch Tech) and Alex Daniel (Warsaw) finished second (13.22 meters/43' 4.5") and third (13.09 meters/42' 11.5"), respectively, in the triple jump behind Sassine. In addition to Brunache's runner-up finish in the shot put, Nick LaRocque (Millbrook) finished fourth (13.47 meters/44' 2.5"), Tommy Burek (Latham/Shaker) was seventh (12.53 meters/41' 1.5") and Makowski placed 10th (11.92 meters/39' 1.25") in a field of 20 athletes.
 
Amarian Hughes (Newburgh/Marlboro) placed fifth in the long jump (6.30 meters/20' 8"), while Nick Kaires (St. James/Smithtown East) and Burek were sixth (14.59 meters/47' 10.5") and seventh (14.11 meters/46' 3.5"), respectively, in the weight throw.
 
Three Red Dragons finished in the top eight out of 37 in the mile run. Hunter Brignall (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) was fifth (4:24.84), Harry Tomasi (Port Jervis) finished seventh (4:25.87) and Clay Santiago (Bethpage) was eighth (4:26.00). Cortland also had three in the top 10 out of 25 in the 3,000 meters – RJ Davis (Cicero/Cicero-North Syracuse) in sixth (9:11.04), Josh Koeppe (Bridgeport/Cicero-North Syracuse) was seventh (9:14.05) and Adam Schreiber (Williamson) placed 10th (9:17.20).
 
Eddie Manente (Beacon) finished seventh of 33 in the 60-meter dash (7.27, 7.23 prelims), followed by Zaire Higgins (Albany/Colonie) in eighth (7.37, 7.24 prelims). In a field of 19 runners in the 400-meter dash, Aidan Garafola (Bayport/Bayport-Blue Point) placed seventh (52.88), Steven Morrow (Dryden) was eighth (52.92) and Aidan Aguirre (Hicksville) finished ninth (52.97). Travis Iwuagwu (Suffern) finished ninth in the 60-meter hurdles (8.89).
 
Ryan Serp (Commack/Fayetteville-Manlius) finished seventh in the heptathlon, which was conducted over two days. He scored 4,421 points, including 825 points in the 60-meter hurdles (third, 8.65), 796 points in the 60-meter dash (fourth, 7.25), and 593 points in the high jump (fourth, 1.76 meters/5' 9.25").

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

For a brief review of yesterday's competition, a number of the strongest positives don't show up unless you look pretty closely at some of the finer details. For example, Liz Liriano not only had an excellent open 200 – faster than her best outdoor performance – but she also split a sub-60 second leg in anchoring the 4x400 relay, which is a benchmark of competitive excellence that we like to see achieved! Similarly, Oba Awolowo anchored one of our 4x200s and one of our 4x400s in strong fashion; his sub-52 second split in the 4x400 was a great way to finish our day on the track.
 
For both genders, the 200 was a very strong event for us on the day, with a number of strong performances. To emphasize that point, our 'top' men's 4 x 200 relay posted the 5th-fastest time ever at SUNY Cortland.
 
Some other noteworthy performances for the men on Saturday include Cam Szabo's best indoor 800, strong miles from Harry Tomasi, Clay Santiago, newcomer Jakob Getchell, and Mike Alvarez, a big PR in the 60 for Eddie Manente, a great day high jumping from Roland Zanger, and PRs in the throwing events from Nick LaRocque (in shot, for what feels like the 3rd week in a row), and from Nick Kaires, Tommy Burek, and Mike Iavaroni all in the weight throw.
 
For the women, four milers (Sydney Smith, Rachel Castello, Devin Reilly, and Adrienne Martin) finished with new PRs, as did Deirdre Sullivan and Anika Parnell! That was a quite high percentage of our distance runners having great efforts on the day! Lauren Anderson had her first sub-10 second effort of the year in the 60HH. In the field events, firstyears Mariah Saggese (HJ), Megan Spencer (SP), Becca Bready (PV), and Faith Hoyt (also PV) all had college PRs on Saturday – it's great to see things coming together!
 
To bring it back to today's competition in the combined events, you have to give these student-athletes a lot of credit. The men started competition at 3:20 on Saturday, with four different events last night; today started at 10AM with three more. That's a lot over the weekend! Senior Ryan Serp had 4 PRs during the heptathlon (in the 60, SP, HJ, and PV), to go along with the best overall score he has ever posted. Nik Knobloch also had 4PRs (in the same events as Ryan), to go along with a brand new overall PR. For firstyear Jakub Dobrowolski-Kosior he had an excellent first heptathlon to hit the conference standard; to win the final event, the 1000 meters, showed a great deal of determination after the long weekend.
 
But there probably isn't anybody that can beat out Regan Kaiser's weekend, who had a PR in ALL FIVE of the events in the pentathlon today – which of course led to a pretty substantial PR in the pentathlon as well. Regan has put in a great deal of hard work over the past year, and it shows, as she scored more points today in a pentathlon than she did in the heptathlon last spring! Besides reaching the SUNYAC standard in the pentathlon, she also hit qualifying marks in the high jump and long jump. Since today was the first time Regan had hit qualification marks, it's even more impressive that she did it across three different events!
 
This week is focused on recovering and feeling better, with an eye towards meets this weekend. We are very fortunate to be able to send a bus to RIT, a bus to the Ocean Breeze Facility in Staten Island, and a small contingent out to Boston University. Not every school provides that level of support for the track and field program, and we both appreciate it and intend to take advantage of it!