Cortland Sports Information Department
GENEVA, OHIO – Brett Morse (Saratoga Springs) finished in 11th place out of 20 competitors in the men's 110-meter hurdles and Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima) placed 12th out of 22 competitors in the women's high jump at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Both events were held on Friday during the second day of the three-day championship at the SPIRE Institute sports complex.
Morse registered a time of 14.64 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles preliminaries. He finished fifth in his heat - the second of three heats conducted. The winner of each heat, plus the next six fastest times, qualified for Saturday's finals. The qualification cutoff point was 14.58 seconds, with the top time of the prelims 14.31 seconds by Giovanni Alfred of Washington-St. Louis.
Fisk was part of a six-way tie for the eighth-best height of the meet at 1.66 meters (5' 5.25"). Three of those athletes cleared the height on their first attempt to take the eighth, ninth and 10th spots. Fisk and Linfield's Jerrica Pachl were successful on their second attempts, but Pachl had no other misses while Fisk missed once at her opening height of 1.56 meters, giving Pachl 11th place and Fisk 12th. Kimmy McPherson of MIT won the national title as one of three athletes to clear 1.72 meters (5' 7.75").
Both Morse and Fisk improved on their previous NCAA championship appearances - Morse was 12th nationally in the indoor 60-meter hurdles this past March, while Fisk tied for 18th nationally at last year's NCAA outdoor championships.
The top eight finishers in each event score points and are All-Americans. Morse and Fisk were Cortland's two representatives at the championship.
Coach's Corner - Comments from Head Coach Steve Patrick:
It never seems like the right time to end the season, but I'm very thankful to have both Brett and Danielle back for next year! I'm also very thankful for their dedication and development over the season. Both have shown pretty tremendous improvement through the year!
Danielle and Brett both had good competitive efforts at the championships, but also showed that they are capable of more. They didn't really do anything incorrectly today; rather, they didn't necessarily do it as well as they could have on the day. That's a very important difference, and shows a good level of maturity as an athlete. While of course we wanted to be in the top eight, when you consider how many student-athletes compete in the high hurdles and high jump finishing 11th or 12th nationally is a pretty stellar achievement!
As a whole, the team seems excited to be getting to summer training, as well as to welcome our new firstyear and transfer student-athletes to the family!
