GENESEO, N.Y - The Cortland women's outdoor track and field team broke two school records and earned nine individual and two relay All-SUNYAC honors, including four league titles, at the SUNYAC Championships. The meet was hosted by SUNY Geneseo Friday and Saturday.
 
Cortland finished with 134.5 points. Geneseo won the league title with 297 points, followed by Brockport (172.5), Cortland, Oneonta (68), Buffalo State (61), Plattsburgh (35), Oswego (28), Fredonia (13) and Potsdam (6).
 
The 4x100-meter relay team of Kendall Sobczyk (Wheatfield/Niagara Wheatfield), Alexia Prince (Spring Valley/Clement Howell), Faith Nelson (Rensselaer/Columbia) and Autumn Pittman (Spring Valley/Ramapo) broke the school record with its winning time of 47.51 seconds. The previous school mark of 47.53 seconds was set at last year's SUNYAC meet by Sobczyk, Alyssa LaBelle, Elizabeth Liriano and Pittman. Cortland currently ranks 23rd nationally in Division III in the event.
 
Jennifer Ndukwu (Queens/Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School) set a new school mark in the hammer throw with her second-place distance of 50.06 meters (164' 3"). She eclipsed the previous record of 49.02 meters/160' 10" set by Sarah Parr last season.
 
Pittman won two individual events. She captured the 100-meter dash in 11.99 seconds and the 200-meter dash in 24.72 seconds. Her 200-meter time is actually faster than the current school record but doesn't qualify for the record book since it was wind aided by at least 4.0 meters/second (4.9). Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima) won the heptathlon with a score of 4,551 points that currently ranks 16th nationally. She finished first in five of the seven events (200-meter dash - 26.87; 100-meter hurdles - 14.87; high jump - 1.63 meters/5' 4.25"; long jump - 5.02 meters/16' 5.75"; javelin - 27.92 meters/91' 7")
 
Sydney Smith (Greenville) finished second in the 1,500 meters (4:47.85) and Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) was second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (11:09.95). Fisk finished third in the high jump (1.57 meters/5' 1.75), Sobczyk placed third in the 100-meter dash (12.45) and Faith Hoyt (Pittsford/Pittsford Mendon) was third in the pole vault (3.35 meters/10' 11.75"). The 4x400-meter relay team of Yasmine Peralta (Monroe/Monroe-Woodbury), Maris Seabury (Old Chatham/Ichabod Crane), Matty Lucey (Freeville/Groton) and Avery Hebert (Stillwater) placed third in 4:04.94.
 
The top three finishers in each event earn All-SUNYAC honors – winners are first team, runners-up are second team and third-place finishers are third team, with their official all-league designation from the conference based on their best placement.

Numerous Cortland performances in addition to those above ranked in the top eight to score points at the meet. Those performances included:
 
4th place:
AnJalyna Talmadge (Pine Bush), Heptathlon, 3,886 pts.
Hebert, 400-meter dash, 59.48, 59.25 prelims
Reilly Quinn (Beekmantown), High Jump, 1.57 meters/5' 1.75"
 
5th place:
Prince, 200-meter dash, 25.54
Seabury, 400-meter dash, 1:00.64
Regan Kaiser (Queensbury/Glens Fall), High Jump, 1.52 meters (4' 11.75") (tied)
 
6th place:
Devin Reilly (Irvington), 10,000 meters, 39:42.88
Caitlin Maher (Hartsdale/Ardsley), Triple Jump, 10.12 meters (33' 2.5")
Hannah McMasters (Homer), Hammer, 47.81 meters (156' 10")
 
7th place:
Peralta, 400-meter hurdles, 1:08.27, 1:07.84 prelims
Alexa Wolcott (Wyoming/Pavilion), 3,000-meter steeplechase, 11:35.42
Matteson Donnelly (Pearl River), Triple Jump, 10.05 meters (32' 11.75")
 
8th place:
Nelson, 400-meter dash, 1:01.95, 1:01.67 prelims
Adrienne Martin (Cincinnatus/Norwich), 5,000 meters, 19:42.09
Lucey, 400-meter hurdles, 1:11.08, 1:09.40 prelims
Anika Parnell (Corinth), 3,000-meter steeplechase, 11:35.58
Ndukwu, Shot Put, 11.76 meters (38' 7")

Cortland will potentially compete at "Last Chance" meets over the next week, and the Red Dragons will host the All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) Outdoor Championships May 15-16 Cortland's AARTFC qualifiers during the SUNYAC Championships were:
 
Fisk, Heptathlon (if top 16; currently ranks 3rd), High Jump, 100-meter hurdles and High Jump (during heptathlon)
Hoyt, Pole Vault
Innocent, 3,000-meter steeplechase
McMasters, Hammer
Ndukwu, Hammer
Parnell, 3,000-meter steeplechase
Pittman, 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash
Prince, 200-meter dash
Reilly, 10,000 meters
Sobczyk, 100-meter dash
Smith, 1,500 meters
Talmadge, Heptathlon (if top 16; currently ranks 13th), 100-meter hurdles (during heptathlon)
Wolcott, 3,000-meter steeplechase
 
4x100-meter relay
4x400-meter relay

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

There's quite a lot to be very proud of from this meet! Both teams should a lot of resilience and great competitive spirit as we went through the weekend. While not everything worked out exactly as we may have planned or hoped for the most part we went after things the right way. We never want to be afraid of failure as it is going to happen sometimes; we just want to always be sure that we are taking the chance and being bold with how we compete! We were very good with that over the course of the weekend, which is certainly an achievement!
 
A few things to highlight would include of course our two new school records on the women's side with Jennifer Ndukwu in the hammer throw, and the women's 4x100 relay. Our men's hammer throw showed tremendous depth with earning 5 of the 8 scoring spots; Isaiah Brunache has now joined Mitchell Makowski and Evan Collette in the top 5 list at Cortland, while Nick Kaires's best on the day would have put him in the top 5 before this season, so we know things are going well in that event!
 
Nick Kaires hurled a tremendous throw with the discus to move up to our #2 all-time spot, while Isaiah Brunache closed in on the #4 all-time spot with his new big PR in the discus. Closing out the throws, it was great to see 'Big Nick' LaRocque hit the AARTFC standard in the shot put, and to see Tommy Martin have a great progression in the javelin to earn the runner-up spot in the conference meet.
 
Of the 12 men's events that featured trials and finals, in 10 of the events at least three Red Dragons earned their way to the finals. This added up to a lot of points over the weekend and shows a great deal about the team's depth and competitiveness. Amarian Hughes obviously had a great weekend to be a double winner (with a huge PR in the long jump); in the men's triple jump Hayden Erick and Kevin Andreski both had their best jumps of the day on their final attempt, moving up scoring spots.
 
Firstyear Jack Bisbee posted a new #4 all-time mark in the 800 for Cortland during the preliminaries, while Hunter Brignall had his best weekend at a SUNYAC track and field championships over his three years with the Red Dragons. In both of his 800 races and his 1500 he made a strong move to push the middle of the race and it helped push him into PRs as well as into great scoring position.
 
Finally for the men I'd like to highlight our 4x100 relay of Daniel Cruz, Aidan Garafola, Doug Knapp, and Brandon Levin. We were concerned about the number of races that some of our sprinters might have, so we decided to go with a new combination for the relay. The ran a fast time that was strong enough for the win, under what had to be a pretty high-pressure situation. They each ran strong legs, but also executed the handoffs pretty darn well!
 
Returning to the women's squad, Danielle Fisk posting a big score in the heptathlon in a manner that helps to secure her qualification for NCAAs was great; she also moved into the #4 all-time spot at Cortland. While the open high jump competition was a bit of a gamble, it was a good opportunity for her to work on some specific skills again in preparation for the NCAA Championships. Our depth in the women's high jump was pretty strong over the weekend, especially seeing Reilly Quinn earn an AARTFC qualifying mark! In the other vertical jump Faith Hoyt put together a great day of vaulting on Friday, setting a new PR twice and earning her first AARTFC qualifying mark as well!
 
Our women's distance squad was quite stellar on the weekend! Devin Reilly started us off great on a warm Friday night in the 10k with a new PR and earning team points with her 6th place finish. This was impressive considering how she ran nearly the entire race alone! Adrienne Martin closed off the individual events on Saturday earning a scoring position in the women's 5k. After missing a large chunk of time this semester, to be able to return to score like that was great to see!
 
Sydney Smith had a great effort in the 1500 to earn the runner-up position and a huge PR! About 500 meters into the race she took a chance to really push and it paid off tremendously for her! It was an exciting race to watch and great to see her effort pay off in that way!
 
The track events started on Saturday with the women's steeplechase, where three of our team were in scoring position; Anika Parnell closed out her college career with a new PR and Melissa Innocent made a huge move about halfway through the race to earn the silver medal in the event. Melissa's time broke into our all-time top 5 list, as well as places her nationally in the top 50, and currently as the 5th-fastest firstyear in the country. That's quite an achievement!
 
The outdoor SUNYAC Championships is always bittersweet in that it is the last meet for the year for so many in the program; it is also the final meet of the career for a number of folks. We're obviously sad to see these folks leave – it's hard to believe that graduation is only a week away – but excited for the next step that they are taking.