Cortland Sports Information Department
PITTSFORD, N.Y. – The Cortland men's 4x400-meter relay broke its own school record and earned a spot in Saturday's finals to highlight the Red Dragons' performances during Thursday's opening day of competition at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The three-day meet is being hosted by St. John Fisher University.
Cortland's other competitor on Thursday, junior Danielle Fisk (Honeoye Falls/Honeoye Falls-Lima), tied for 19th place in the women's high jump.
The combination of senior Aaron Jones (Buffalo/Hutch Tech), senior Coltrane Goring (Los Angeles, CA/Notre Dame), firstyear Harrison Gavalas (Southampton) and senior Douglas Knapp (Brooklyn/Xaverian) finished fourth in the opening heat of the 4x400 in 3:11.72, breaking its own school record by four tenths of a second. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps won the heat in 3:09.26.
The top two finishers in each of the two heats, along with the next four fastest times, qualified for Saturday's eight-team finals. Cortland had the sixth-best time among the 16 participating schools.
Cortland will compete in the finals Saturday at 4:50 p.m. The top eight finishers in each event score team points and are All-Americans.
Fisk cleared 1.56 meters (5' 1.25") on her opening attempt but missed on all three of her tries at 1.61 meters (5' 3.25"). Merchant Marine Academy's Kira Porzio, coached by former Cortland multi-athlete and assistant coach Kayla Koebel '16, M '18, won the national title at 1.72 meters (5' 7.75"). Fisk was making her fourth NCAA appearance in the high jump, including three in a row outdoors.
Cortland continues action Friday with three men's events. Zach Nyhart (Hamburg) will compete in the pole vault finals at 10 a.m., Isaiah Brunache (Bennington, VT/Mount Anthony Union) will be in the shot put prelims and potentially finals at 1 p.m., and Brett Morse (Saratoga Springs) will be competing in the 110-meter hurdles preliminaries at 5 p.m.
Coach's Corner - Comments from Cortland Head Coach Steve Patrick:
It's a weird night to have a relative low and a relative high. It obviously wasn't the result we wanted for Danielle, but we made a lot of progress on how she approached the event during the outdoor season. I'm really proud of how she was able to make those changes, and I know it will pay off in the long term.
Obviously the men ran great to set a school record and make the finals! In particular our first two legs, Aaron Jones and Coltrane Goring, put us into a great position that the other guys brought home!
I'd also like to shout out alumnae Kayla Koelbel (who was both a member of the program and later an assistant coach with us) who coached the winner of the women's high jump today!
Danielle Fisk competing at the championship (photo by d3photography.com)
