Cortland, NY – The Broncos Track and Field team traveled to Cortland State this weekend for their first ever SUNYAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The teams had a terrific showing with the women placing third as a team and the men placing fifth. As has been the story all year, more program records fell, and a few athletes put themselves in position to have a chance at the NCAA Championship meet later this month.
In a tale of two days, the weather on Friday was warm and breezy, but that came with two different weather delays before the meet was called for the evening, and the games committee had to scramble to create a new order of events to combine all remaining competition into Saturday's schedule. The athletes then woke up Saturday to a cold, dreary day with rain on and off throughout the meet.
Without a doubt the biggest performance for the Broncos came in the preliminary heats of the women's 100-meter dash. In the first heat of the prelim, sophomore Miranda Cole shattered the all-conditions program record with a time of 11.79 seconds moving herself into the top 12 athletes in the nation. That record, however, only lasted about four minutes because Shaesha Johnson ran a jaw-dropping 11.67 seconds in the second heat of the prelims. That time for Johnson sits at #4 in the nation. In the 100-meter final, Johnson placed second overall and Cole placed third.
Cole went on to win the 200-meter dash, another event where she is in the top 20 in the nation with Johnson taking third. Cole and Johnson also teamed up with Zoe Rodi and Belvia Konodji to win the 4x100 meter relay title in a time of 47.65
Rodi also got in on the record action, breaking her own program record on Friday when she ran a new lifetime best of 57.40. She would go on to finish second in today's final.
There was also a pair of distance runners that got in on the fun. Charlotte Warner opened day two with a commanding win in the 3000-meter steeplechase. Warner narrowly broke the program record two weeks ago, but this time she took an additional 18 seconds off the mark, winning the race by 33 seconds. Fellow distance runner Amanda Intrieri also took an individual SUNYAC title in the 1500 meters where she ran 4:49.22, to match her time from earlier this season to the hundredth as she pulled away over the last 100 meters to win by three seconds. Intrieri also pulled teammate Evie Eastman along to a third-place finish and a new lifetime best of 4:52.53.
The women also had strong runner-up finishes from Kitty Messina in the Javelin and the 4x400 meter relay team of Gabrielle Brown, Belvia Konodji, Amanda Intrieri and Zoe Rodi.
On the men's side both the 4x100 and 4x400 meter relay teams took the titles. In the 4x100 the team of Marvin Markland, Deron Davis, Jabez Primus and Cristhian Cuevas ran 41.99 to hold off a hard charging Cortland relay team.
In the 4x400, Ryan Swinea led off for the Broncos and with a fantastic final 70 meters put them in command of the race at the first exchange. After legs from Leonardo Ballentine and Dale Lambert, the men found themselves in second place sandwiched between the teams from Fredonia and Cortland. When Neklor Smith came into the final straightaway he was able to power past and beat both those teams to the line for the win with a time of 3:19.57.
Those were the only two event wins for the men's team, but the depth of the squad allowed them to pile up points for a fifth-place team finish. The team scored in nine out of the twelve events on the track and then added points in the high jump and triple jump as well.
The team will now take a few athletes to West Point on Thursday for a last chance meet and an opportunity for some relays to run on fresh legs and try to punch their ticket to the Regional or NCAA Championships. They will follow that up the next week with those that have qualified running in the All-Atlantic Regional Track and Field Conference Championship.
