CORTLAND, N.Y. – The Cortland women's outdoor track and field team earned four wins and 10 other top-three finishes at the Red Dragon Open, which it hosted at the SUNY Cortland Stadium Complex.
 
Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima) won the high jump with a leap of 1.68 meters (5' 6"), which currently is tied for sixth nationally in Division III, is an All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) qualifier, and ranks first in the SUNYAC. Fisk also placed second of 10 in the long jump with an AARTFC distance of 5.45 meters (17' 10.75") that is tied for 23rd nationally, and she was fourth in the javelin throw at 28.50 meters (93' 6").
 
Sarah Parr (Cooperstown) posted two wins on the day. She was first of 24 in the discus throw at 34.40 meters (112' 10") and first of 20 in the hammer throw at 46.24 meters (151' 8"). Autumn Pittman (Spring Valley/Ramapo) finished second of 28 in the 100-meter dash with an AARTFC time of 12.62 seconds and was second of 32 in the 200-meter dash in 26.55 seconds. She was the top Division III finisher in both events.
 
The 4x100-meter relay team of Kendall Sobczyk (Wheatfield/Niagara Wheatfield), Alyssa LaBelle (Poughquag/Arlington), Julia Ross (Sloatsburg/Suffern) and Pittman finished first with an AARTFC time of 49.94 seconds. Sam Becker (Narrowsburg/Sullivan West), Yasmine Peralta (Monroe/Monroe-Woodbury), Maris Seabury (Old Chatham/Ichabod Crane) and Elizabeth Liriano (New York/Manhattan Ctr. for Science and Math) finished second in the 4x400-meter relay in 4:12.33.
 
Becker finished third in the 400-meter hurdles in 1:04.09, an AARTFC qualifier that currently ranks 11th nationally in Division III. She also finished seventh in the javelin throw (24.60 meters/80' 8").
 
Emma Trefzger (Horseheads) finished second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 12:19.43, followed by Adrienne Martin (Cincinnatus/Norwich) in third at 12:23.09. Caitlin Maher (Hartsdale/Ardsley) was the runner-up in the triple jump at 10.65 meters (34' 11.25"), Becca Bready (Rochester/Gates Chili) finished third in the pole vault (3.15 meters/10' 4"), and Sobczyk finished third in the 100-meter dash (12.95).
 
Peralta finished fourth in the 400-meter hurdles (1:08.04) and LaBelle earned a fifth-place finish in the long jump (4.98 meters/16' 4.25"). Marlee Angus was fourth in the 800 meters (2:26.80), followed by Savannah Adami (Guilderland) in fifth (2:27.07). Megan Spencer (Somers) finished fifth in both the discus (31.07 meters/101' 11") and hammer throw (41.01 meters/134' 6").
 
On Thursday and Friday, AnJalyna Talmadge (Pine Bush) competed in the heptathlon at a meet hosted by Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. She finished in 15th place with 3,702 points, which included 678 points in the high jump (1.55 meters/5' 1"), 673 points in the 100-meter hurdles (16.34) and 597 points in the 200-meter dash (28.44).

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

It's hard to believe as I write these comments that the combined-event started in Susquehanna just three days ago, as it seems much further in the past than that! I'm very grateful that we had the opportunity as a program to allow our combined-event athletes to have an early-season decathlon, and am understandably quite pleased with the results. AnJalyna Talmadge had a number of strong individual event performances, and overall a strong performance in her first-ever heptathlon along with a really good learning experience. Both of the guys (Nik Knobloch and Ryan Serp) had fairly significant improvements to their overall best score as a result of what they accomplished over the two days, and both did very good work in terms of how they were mentally engaged and prepared for each event over the two days. It was certainly a great start to a long weekend!
 
Mother Nature was fairly kind to us on Saturday for our home opener. Having the chance to compete at home is always fun, and a pretty important part of how we run our program, but if you're reading this you know what the weather can be like in Central New York. I wouldn't describe today as perfect, but it was certainly pleasant and while the weather didn't help with any performances, it also didn't do very much to limit anything, which was really great!
 
The team had a number of great efforts on the day, so it's quite a challenge to pick a few stellar performances to highlight here. For this week, I'd like to focus on things that won't show up in any of the results online, and I'll start how exciting the women's 4x100 relay was, as the win was a dramatic come-from-behind run by Autumn Pittman to put the team under 50 seconds. The four legs ran great efforts, but we didn't have the cleanest handoffs and lost a lot of time as a result, so I'm very excited to see where that team can go with more time to practice! As long as we are on the subject of relays, Savannah Adami was asked at the last minute to step in as the anchor due to a teammate being able to run so that the other three ladies would be able to get their work in. Anybody who's been around the sport of track knows that being available for the 4x4 at the end of the meet is often an 'unwelcome gift' but Savannah was great about this unexpected challenge – something great to see as a coach – and then ran a very competitive leg, pushing right from the exchange to compete well with the team in front of us.
 
On the men's side, we had a fun opportunity to use the 4x100 relay as a chance to train, and it worked out to have a relay of returners versus a relay of firstyears. The biggest difference was the handoffs as the returners prevailed, but it's important to note that the firstyear team was able to drop a time – without the strongest exchanges – that was a qualifier for the regional championships! That's a pretty exciting indicator of our overall depth. I'll also highlight that Jakob Getchell, in the first steeplechase of his running career, took a nasty fall into the water pit, and not only got up, but still hit a very solid SUNYAC qualifying time!
 
We're looking forward to some warmer weather, and the opportunity to compete again at home and on the Road at Bucknell this upcoming weekend!