CORTLAND, N.Y. – The Cortland women's outdoor track and field team finished first in seven events and turned in a number of other stellar performances during the Cortland Classic, hosted by the Red Dragons on Friday and Saturday.
 
AnJalyna Talmadge (Pine Bush) won the heptathlon with an All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) qualifying score of 3,850 points. She won three of the seven events: the 100-meter hurdles (15.93 seconds, 723 pts.), high jump (1.55 meters/5' 1", 678 pts.) and shot put (10.60 meters/34' 9.5", 569 pts.), and she also scored 635 points in the 200-meter dash (27.95).
 
The 4x400-meter relay team of Avery Hebert (Stillwater), Sam Becker (Narrowsburg/Sullivan West), Yasmine Peralta (Monroe/Monroe-Woodbury) and Elizabeth Liriano (New York/Manhattan Ctr. for Science and Math) finished first in 4:15.27, while the 4x100-meter relay team of Kendall Sobczyk (Wheatfield/Niagara Wheatfield), Alyssa LaBelle (Poughquag/Arlington), Julia Ross (Sloatsburg/Suffern) and Autumn Pittman (Spring Valley/Ramapo) placed second with an AARTFC time of 49.75 seconds.
 
Becker won the 400-meter hurdles in 1:08.75, followed by Peralta in second (1:09.42) and Helena Trackey (Glens Falls) in fourth (1:13.31). Sydney Smith (Greenville) won the 5,000 meters (19:24.88), Lauren Anderson (Saratoga Springs) was the 100-meter hurdles victor (16.72), and Becca Bready (Rochester/Gates Chili) and Kimmy Arena (West Islip) finished first and second, respectively, in the pole vault, each clearing 3.05 meters (10' 0"). In the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Emma Trefzger (Horseheads) finished first (12:24.84), followed by Adrienne Martin (Cincinnatus/Norwich) in second (12:26.72) and Deirdre Sullivan (Tappan/Tappan Zee) in third (12:32.47).
 
Cortland registered six AARTFC qualifying times in the sprints. Pittman was second of 29 in the 100-meter dash in 12.01 seconds, which ranks first in the SUNYAC, while Sobczyk was fifth (12.53) and LaBelle finished sixth (12.64). Pittman was third of 38 in the 200-meter dash in 25.06 seconds, which also ranks first in the SUNYAC, with Liriano placing fourth (25.36), and Liriano was second of 15 in the 400-meter dash (58.97).
 
Mariah Saggese (Oneonta/Milford) placed second in the high jump with an AARTFC height of 1.59 meters (5' 2.5"). Marlee Angus (Penfield) finished second of 27 in the 800 meters (2:26.27) and second of 34 in the 1,500 meters (5:00.46). Caitlin Maher (Hartsdale/Ardsley) was the triple jump runner-up with a distance of 11.27 meters (36' 11.75") and finished sixth in the long jump at 4.87 meters (15' 11.75").
 
Kristin Ieva (North Babylon) finished third in the 1,500 meters (5:03.26) and fourth in the 800 meters (2:28.89). LaBelle was Cortland's top long jumper with a fourth-place distance of 4.98 meters (16' 4.25"). Hebert and Faith Nelson (Rensselaer/Columbia) were fourth (1:00.75) and fifth (1:03.67), respectively, in the 400-meter dash, and Khalifah Tracey (Greenville) and Devin Reilly (Irvington) finished fourth (5:08.72) and fifth (5:10.15), respectively, in the 1,500 meters. Other Red Dragon highlights included a fifth-place showing by Savannah Adami (Guilderland) in the 800 meters (2:32.67), a fifth-place finish out of 42 competitors by Megan Spencer (Somers) in the discus (35.83 meters/117' 6").

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

There's a lot to process from this weekend.
 
First, we'd like to thank the Cortland Stars for coming out and participating today. Seeing the Special Olympians coming out to compete in the 50m dash, the softball throw, the long jump, and the 100m relay was pretty inspiring! Thanks also to the folks from the Cortland Special Olympics Club, the volleyball team, and the women's ice hockey team for making this event happen.
 
Second, I'd like to commend our team for their resiliency over the weekend. Hosting the two day meet is a long affair, and we had to postpone that final events of Friday evening to Saturday morning. This is a challenge for those athletes, but also for all of the folks that are taking a shift working the meet. Saturday's conditions were nice in terms of temperature and sun, but windy – so windy that we had to move a couple events indoors in order to safely run them – and we certainly passed that test quite well! We preach focusing on what is under out control, and although the wind certainly impacted our performance, I didn't see many instances where it impacted our effort.

We had some exceptional performances over the weekend! I feel fortunate to have another one of those weekends where there are too many exceptional performances to note each one. Briefly, the trio of firstyears in the men's 100 (Harrison Gavalas, Eddie Manente, and Matthew Schaffert) were exceptional. Seeing Brett Morse and Aaron Jones hit some stellar times (and new PRs) in the high hurdles was pretty awesome. Paul Tommolino continued to impress with a strong showing in the 5k, and probably locked up his status as the leader for most improved of the firstyear men. RJ Davis ran a very tough 10k, focused on pacing his teammates early and emphasizing how to close strongly over the final 4000 meters of the race. We saw a LOT of improvement in the men's discus throw and the men's javelin throw and had a pretty dominant night in the 4x400 relay on Friday – with teams running 3:14.35, #2 on our all-time list, 3:17.48, and 3:20.70 in the same race! It was a pretty awesome thing to see! Zach Nyhart setting an outdoor PR in the pole vault to move up the NCAA, was pretty exceptional as well, but the new school record  by Amarian Hughes in the triple jump – taking down one of the oldest school records on the books – was pretty cool to see. Amarian led a stellar night for the horizontal jumps, with the men just soaring over the weekend!
 
The Lady Red Dragons were not to be outdone, as they also posted some exceptional efforts over the conditions. I'm quite pleased with how well the distance races went for the ladies on Friday night, as we had a number of folks that executed the race plans wonderfully and walked away with very strong results. I'll especially highlight our steeple people who competed with a lot of heart to sweep the top four spots in the race, Sydney Smith for a huge PR in the 5k (and the win) and Cherise Mack with another huge PR in the 5k,  and a crew that ran quite tough in the 1500 highlighted by Andie Rice finished quite strong to set a new PR! We saw a lot of positive progress in the throws, probably led by firstyear Megan Spencer who posted new PRs in both the hammer throw and the discus throw As with the men, the ladies saw some strong success in the horizontal jumps, as Caitlin Maher posted big jumps to move up her PR by a significant amount, but also some great depth of performances in the long jump by Alyssa LaBelle, Maher, and Regan Kaiser. Our 'short sprints' had a great weekend, led by LaBelle, Autumn Pittman, and Kendall Sobczyk. We had some exciting runs over the weekend that are very encouraging for what we can do as a team!
 
But despite all that, our senior recognition both at the meet and at an informal event later that evening were probably the highlight of the weekend. It's truly an honor to have worked with these folks over their time with the program, and seeing the support and respect from their teammates was a wonderful way to close out the weekend for us.

We have a busy final week of the 'regular' season, with meets at home on Tuesday and Sunday, as well as travelling with some of the squad to Shippensburg University for the Paul Kaiser Classic on Saturday.