Feldman wins SUNYAC award for sprint double

Couperus also claims a crown, Blue Devils keep Lake Erie Cup

Fredonia junior Brittany Feldman (Jamestown) was named 2017 Track Athlete of the Meet after winning two events Saturday at the SUNYAC Outdoor Track & Field outdoor championships at SUNY Cortland.

Feldman was first in the 200 meters and the 400 meters. She earned 10 points for each of the wins as the Blue Devils tied Cortland for fourth-place finish in the team standings. Junior jumper Sarah Couperus (Marion, N.Y.) won the high jump to give Fredonia three SUNYAC champs.

Feldman crossed the 400-meter line in 57.17 seconds -- was nearly one second slower than her season-best 56.29-second effort during Friday's preliminaries. The preliminary time was No. 12 on the NCAA Division III qualifying list prior to the start of Saturday's competition across the country. Later Saturday, she won the 200 meters in 25.66 seconds -- four-hundredths of one second off her Friday's preliminary.

The winning high jump by Couperus was 1.62 meters -- roughly 5 feet, 3 3/4 inches. It was almost two inches higher than she had gone this season and was just a fraction short of her personal-best 1.63 meters when she won the SUNYAC 2016 indoor title. She also was fourth in the triple jump at 10.92 meters (35 feet, 10 inches), giving her 15 team votes in the two events.

While Fredonia was finishing fourth, Buffalo State came in seventh. By topping the Bengals, the women earned two points in the Battle by the Lake series and retained the Lake Erie Cup for Fredonia for the third straight year. This year's score, 17 1/2 to 15 1/2, was the closest so far and was the first time that the three-year-old series came down to the final competition of the year.

Below is a recap of Saturday's activity:

In the discus, a second-place throw by junior Anneliese Bienko (Clarence) earned her Second Team All-SUNYAC honors (Feldman and Couperus made First Team). Bineko's best throw of the day measured out at 41.91 meters (137 feet, 6 inches), a personal improvement of over five feet. She moved up from No. 4 to No. 3 on the Fredonia outdoor top-10 list.

Meanwhile, junior Rachel Williams (Lockport) was sixth in the discus at 35.63 meters (116 feet, 11 inches), worth three points and a personal-best She earned five additional points in the shot put with a fourth-place throw of 12.15 meters (39 feet, 10 1/2 inches).

Stephanie Wojnowski (Rochester, N.Y.) was fourth and Julia Johnson (Baldwinsville) seventh in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. A sophomore, Wojnowski ran 11:27.31 and earned five team points. She was fifth at last year's meet. Johnson, a senior, earned two points; she was clocked in a personal-best 11:50.95. It was also the first time she earned individual points at a SUNYAC meet.

Brenna Donovan (Youngstown, N.Y.), a sophomore, was eighth in the 5,000 meters with a time of 18:22.07, a personal-best by 2.5 seconds. She was fourth Friday in the 10,000 meters.

In the heptathlon, junior Miranda Warner (Westfield) finished eighth among 14 women with a two-day total of 3,173 points, an improvement over her previous-best 3,038 points two weekends ago at the Cortland Classic. Warner's effort included two personal-bests -- 30.92 seconds in the 200 meters, and 26.88 meters in the javelin.

BLUE DEVILS ON THE BOARD: Fredonia alumna and former assistant coach Julia (Hopson) Williamson had her SUNYAC meet hammerthrow record taken down Friday by Oneonta's Meghan Surdock. Surdock's winning throw was 56.68 meters compared to Hopson's 55.10 meters at the 2009 championship. Hopson still has the best-ever conference throw of 57.25 meters at a 2008 meet.