NEW YORK, N.Y - The Cortland women's indoor track and field team tied for 13th place out of 41 schools that scored points at the All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) Indoor Championships. The event was held Friday and Saturday at The Armory in Manhattan.
 
Cortland was one of four schools to finish with 15 points. Geneseo won the team title with 82 points, followed by Rochester with 58 and Rowan with 45.
 
Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima) won the high jump with a height of 1.65 meters (5' 5") and Elizabeth Liriano (New York/Manhattan Ctr. for Science and Math) was fourth in the 400-meter dash in 58.49 seconds to provide Cortland's points.
 
The top eight individual finishers and the top three relays earn All-AARTFC honors.
 
Cortland just missed scoring in a pair of relays. The 4x200-meter unit of Kendall Sobczyk (Wheatfield/Niagara Wheatfield), Alyssa LaBelle (Poughquag/Arlington), Julia Ross (Sloatsburg/Suffern) and Autumn Pittman (Spring Valley/Ramapo) finished ninth in 1:47.25, falling short of eighth place by three hundredths of a second, and the quartet of Avery Hebert (Stillwater), Maris Seabury (Old Chatham/Ichabod Crane), Helena Trackey (Glens Falls) and Yasmine Peralta (Monroe/Monroe-Woodbury) finished ninth in the 4x400-meter relay in 4:07.45.
 
Sarah Parr (Cooperstown) finished 12th in the weight throw at 15.06 meters (49' 5"). Pittman was 15th (7.95), Sobczyk finished 21st (8.02) and LaBelle was 29th (8.12) in the 60-meter dash, while Pittman placed 18th (26.12) and Liriano was 22nd (26.21) in the 200-meter dash.
 
Marlee Angus (Penfield) was 19th in the mile run (5:18.06) and Becca Bready (Rochester/Gates Chili) tied for 22nd in the pole vault (3.11 meters/10' 2.5"). Fisk finished 26th in the long jump (4.74 meters/15' 6.75") and Mariah Saggese (Oneonta/Milford) competed in the high jump but did not clear a height.
 
Cortland awaits the announcement of qualifiers for next weekend's NCAA Division III Championships, which be held at the Birmingham Crossplex in Birmingham, Ala., March 10-11. The final participant list will be posted on NCAA.com this Sunday, March 5, by 7 p.m. The top 20 in each individual event and the top 12 in each relay (4x400 and DMR) qualify for nationals. As of late Saturday night, Fisk is tied for 10th nationally in the high jump at 1.68 meters/5' 6".

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

I'm only going to provide some quick notes as I have to start with final preparations for travel for NCAAs. Obviously finishing as the runner-up on the men's side is a strong testament to how the team has been functioning over the year! Some notable performances – outside of the obvious wins and scoring performances – would be that Coltrane Goring's 200 broke into our all-time top 5 list, as did the 4 x 400 relay (of Evan Jensen, Douglas Knapp, Harrison Gavalas, and Goring), along with the 4 x 200 relay (of Brett Morse, Aaron Jones, Matthew Schaffert, and Goring). Triple jump was probably our strongest individual event on the day, as Amarian Hughes was able to move up a spot in our top-5 list with an improvement on his national mark, but Jean-Andre Sassine may have had the clutch performance of the day, as his best jump moved him up enough in the national rankings to probably be safe for entry into the national meet. His previous best is outside the top 20, so that was a huge performance to have!
 
Generally the Lady Red Dragons did a nice job of competing on the day; the highlight was probably Autumn Pittman, who had individual PRs in both the 60 meters and the 200 meters, and ran a great anchor leg on our 4 x 200. We saw a number of strong performances in a high-pressure situation, so I'm quite proud of how we showed up to compete over the two days. A lot of this was a positive learning experience to carry forward into the outdoor track and field season.
 
Entires are being submitted for next weekend's NCAA Championships in Birmingham, Alabama – we should have official notification on the accepted entries tomorrow afternoon!