CHAMPS! Amarian Hughes and 4x400 Relay of Jensen, Cheatham, Gavalas and Jeffes Win National Titles at NCAA Indoor Championships

Cortland Sports Information Department

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Cortland men's indoor track and field team claimed two national titles as graduate student Amarian Hughes (Newburgh/Marlboro) won the triple jump and senior Evan Jensen (Red Hook), sophomore Zion Cheatham (Lockport), junior Harrison Gavalas (Southampton) and graduate student Josh Jeffes (Scotia/Scotia-Glenville) won the 4x400-meter relay during the final day of competition at the 2025 NCAA Division III Men's Indoor Track and Field Championships at Nazareth University's Golisano Training Center.
 
Also on Saturday, Jeffes earned first-team All-America honors with a sixth-place finish in the 400-meter dash, and junior Isaiah Brunache (Bennington, VT/Mount Anthony Union) earned first-team All-America honors for the second straight day after finishing in eighth place in the shot put. He was seventh in the weight throw on Friday.
 
Cortland finished fifth in the final team standings with 26 points - 10 from the triple jump, 10 from the 4x400-meter relay, three from the 400 meters, two from the weight throw and one from the shot put. Wisconsin-La Crosse won the title with 84 points, followed by Wisconsin-Oshkosh (39), Rowan (32), Lynchburg (29), Cortland (26) and Bethel (Minn.) (25) in the top six. A total of 96 schools had at least one competitor at the meet.
 
The Cortland men's track and field team now has 18 individual/relay national titles. The program won a relay national title for the first time. The most recent national championships prior to this year came in 2017 when Jack Flood won the heptathlon indoors and decathlon outdoors. In all, Cortland Athletics, over all sports, now boasts 108 individual national titles (the relay counts as one of those 108).
 
Hughes won the triple jump in dramatic fashion with a distance of 15.35 meters (50' 4.5") on his final attempt. The effort broke his own school record of 15.34 meters, which had him seeded second at nationals. He earlier earned a spot in the nine-person finals with a distance of 15.08 meters, which placed him third.
 
Hughes was second after his fifth overall attempt (second of the finals) at 15.23 meters. Dontre Sinegal of McMurry took the lead in the fifth round at 15.29 meters, then extended that lead in the sixth round to 15.33 meters. Hughes came up three jumpers later and unleashed this 15.35-meter effort to take the lead and he wasn't caught.
 
The 4x400-meter relay was conducted in two heats. In the opening heat, Wisconsin-La Crosse set the time to beat at 3:12.89. Cortland then competed in the second heat with Bethel, Loras and RIT. Jensen opened in 48.81 seconds and was a close behind leader Bethel. Cheatham posted a leg of 48.19 seconds and took the lead late in his run. Gavalas recorded a leg of 48.67 seconds and extended the Red Dragons' lead, and Jeffes ran the final 400 meters in 46.94 seconds.
 
Jeffes held off a late charge from Bethel's Grant Nelson to give Cortland the heat victory, and the national title, by three tenths of a second. Bethel and Wisconsin-Lacrosse each finished in 3:12.89, with Bethel earning second over UW-La Crosse when the time was extended to thousandths of a second (3:12.881 to 3:12.889).
 
The Cortland quartet broke its own school record of 3:12.87 set previously this year - an impressive feat considering that it occurred on a flat track while the previous record was on a banked track at Boston University.
 
Less than two hours before the relay, Jeffes finished sixth in the 400-meter dash in 47.95 seconds. He covered the first 200 meters in 22.77 seconds, putting him fourth at the time, and ran the final 200 in 25.19 seconds. Jeffes, in his first season at Cortland after transferring from SUNY Delhi, earned All-America honors in the 400 for the fourth time, including three at indoors championships. He finished fifth in 2024 outdoors, seventh in 2004 indoors and eighth in 2022 indoors.
 
Brunache finished eighth in the shot put to earn first-team All-America honors, which go to the top eight finishers in each event. He was 12th after two attempts, but on his final heave of the first round he recorded a distance of 16.83 meters (55' 2.75") to move into eighth place and reach the nine-person finals. Brunache was unable to improve on that result during the finals and held on for eighth place. His weight throw and shot put All-America honors are the first two for him indoors; he previously was national runner-up in the shot put at the 2023 outdoor nationals, while his previous indoor finish was 20th in the shot put in 2023.

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

To review the day in order, first it's worth recognizing what a huge achievement Isaiah had today: to fight back through all three throws on the finals is a huge demonstration of mental toughness after the slow start. Competing in both events is incredibly hard; the be on the podium for both is something special! It shows how much he has worked to be good enough on a day where things aren't firing on all cylinders to still earn All-American, especially when the rest of the finals field all set lifetime bests.

For Josh's open 400, what an effort! He was out much faster than he had been all season, which was incredibly important based on how fast the rest of the field went out. To his credit he fought for every hundredth of a second - and to set a new personal record on the NCAA finals is certainly an achievement!

Obviously Amarian made a great day happen for himself! What's really cool is how the competition unfolded: Sinegal from McMurray leapt a huge PR IN THE 5th round to move from 6th to first; Amarian followed up with what was his best jump in the competition to move into second, just a few inches behind. Sinegal returned on his final attempt to push his lead out even farther, but Amarian responded with a new PR and school record on his final attempt. It was incredibly exciting just to be a part of! Probably the coolest thing, however, is the part nobody noticed: after the awards ceremony the first thing Amarian did was to put down his new awards and cool down. It's that type of focus and dedication that propelled him to this point!

And then the relay came. Wow! That was pretty amazing! Evan led us off strong; Zion ran an amazing leg to once again handoff in the lead, Harrison dropped the hammer on his leg and Josh finished like a man possessed. It was certainly a tremendous experience a really fantastic efforts by them to earn our second title of the day! It's pretty crazy to think that they went undefeated on the entire season!