Cortland Sports Information Department
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. – Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima) earned first-team All-America honors for the second straight day with her tie for seventh place in the high jump at the 2024 NCAA Division III Women's Indoor Track and Field Championships. The two-day event was held at the Virginia Beach Sports Center.
One day after placing eighth nationally in the pentathlon, Fisk came out strong and cleared the first three heights on the first attempt, the last at 1.68 meters (5' 6"). She missed on all three of her tries at 1.71 meters and tied for seventh with Coast Guard's Allie Wildsmith. The top four finishers each cleared 1.74 meters, with Grace Alley of Loras winning the title based on fewest total misses. Alley also was the pentathlon national champ.
Fisk's high jump finish is her highest in five combined indoor/outdoor national appearances in the event. Her previous best was 12th place at the 2022 outdoor championship.
Cortland finished the meet with 2.5 team points as a result of Fisk's two top-eight finishes.
Coach's Corner - Comments from Cortland Head Coach Steve Patrick:
This was a pretty exciting morning for us! Within about a 2-minute span Amarian earned 7th in the triple jump, moving up a spot in his final jump, and Danielle's second podium finish of the weekend became official.
I can't stress enough how well both of these folks competed. Amarian had the challenge of a mild strain over the past couple of weeks, to the point where we were concerned if he should even compete; for Danielle coming off the pentathlon yesterday is a pretty tall order.
They both maintained their composure and maintained a high level of focus to earn that podium spot.
Spring break is going to be good for everybody; on the 23rd of March we'll send a few 'outdoor only' folks to Houghton for a small meet and we host our annual Learn By Doing Cljnic on the 24th so things will get busy quickly!
Danielle Fisk, Autumn Pittman Earn All-America Honors During NCAA Opening Day
Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima) earned first-team All-America honors in the pentathlon with an eighth-place and school record-setting finish and Autumn Pittman (Spring Valley/Ramapo) placed 11th in the 60-meter dash to earn second-team All-America honors during the first day of competition at the 2024 NCAA Division III Women's Indoor Track and Field Championships.
Cortland closes the competition Saturday with Fisk in the high jump. The two-day event is being held at the Virginia Beach Sports Center.
Fisk scored 3,410 points in the pentathlon, breaking the previous school record of 3,384 points set by Nikki Schafer in 2013. Fisk earned first-team All-America honors, which go to the top eight, point-scoring finishes. She scored 858 points in the 60-meter hurdles (9.25), 795 points in the high jump (1.65 meters/5' 5"), 497 points in the shot put (9.51 meters/31' 2.5"), 628 points in the long jump (5.25 meters/17' 2.75") and 632 points in the 800 meters (2:34.94). Grace Alley of Loras won the national title with 3,843 points. Fisk finished 15 points ahead of the ninth-place athlete.
Pittman recorded a 60-meter dash prelim time of 7.67 seconds, just a hundredth of a second shy of matching her own school record. She missed advancing to the finals by four hundredths of a second. Pittman earned second-team All-America honors, which are being awarded for the first time this year to individuals who finish between ninth and 16th nationally or relay teams that place ninth or 10th.
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.
