VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. – Cortland's 4x400-meter relay finished in 11th place and nearly set a school record during the opening day of the 2024 NCAA Division III Men's Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Virginia Beach Sports Center.
 
The quartet of Harrison Gavalas (Southampton), Andrew O'Gorman (Melville/Half Hollow Hills East), Zion Cheatham (Lockport) and Doug Knapp (Brooklyn/Xaverian) finished their 4x400 heat in 3:16.50, less than three tenths of a second from the school record of 3:16.21. The placed third in the heat, and none of the four teams in the heat earned one of the eight spots in Saturday's finals.

Brett Morse (Saratoga Springs) finished 18th in the 60-meter hurdles in 8.49 seconds. Isaiah Brunache (Bennington, VT/Mount Anthony Union) was unable to compete in the weight throw due to injury and likely will be unable to compete in Saturday's shot put.
 
Cortland wraps up competition Saturday with Amarian Hughes (Newburgh/Marlboro) in the triple jump.

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

Today was certainly a day of ups and downs! We got off to a rough start, as unfortunately Isaiah Brunache suffered an injury during yesterday's pre-meet that prevented him from competing. It's to his credit that he got out there this morning and tried to compete, but his injury just wouldn't let him.

On the track, it was great to have Brett Morse back from illness. It's unfortunate that his final indoor season didn't end up the way we had expected after the fall semester, but he's back, and his resiliency is a real positive to carry into the outdoor season.

Our men's relay squad ran well. It obviously wasn't the result we wanted, but it was their best time of the year, and they all raced well. Sometimes the heats don't set up well, and that happened to us today. It seems like all four teams I. The heat were racing for place and not time, which ended up hurting all of us. We're not quite at the point to be able to go out and create our own way, but we're really close, so there's a lot to look forward to.

Autumn had a great day! It's hard to perform at any NCAA championships, let alone your first, and she handled the pressure with a lot of grace to finish way better then her seed! She raced just .01 seconds off her personal best, and earned the first All-American award of her career!

It was great to see Danielle break through and end up on the podium. Moving to the combined event this year was a gamble but it seems like it has paid off for her with a scoring finish, All-American, and a new school record! Danielle showed a great deal of composure today, handling each ever quite well! It's almost funny to think that she nearly fell on the first hurdle (during the first event of the day), but just kept progressing from event to event. Often the multi is about surviving your mistakes more than thriving, but Danielle really had no major mistakes over the day, which is a huge accomplishment on her part.

We're excited for Amarian Hughes to compete in triple jump tomorrow, as well as for Danielle to compete in the open high jump.