On Saturday Dec. 3, the men's and women's indoor track and field teams opened the season at the annual Cornell Relays in Ithaca, N.Y.
The Division I meet featured 17 teams, including SUNY Binghamton, Syracuse University, University of Toronto and Geneseo rival SUNY Cortland. Even with big name competitors, the Knights weren't scared off by the competition.
"The only meet we want to be easy is SUNYACs," head coach Dave Prevosti said. "The rest [of the meets], we want to be a challenge. We tend to rise to [the competition]."
Junior Alex Brimstein challenged the competitors in the 3,000-meter race and placed second, just two hundredths of a second behind University of Toronto sophomore Ethan Davenport. Brimstein's race was a top-10 all-time performance in Geneseo history.
Other highlights came from junior Andrew Jehle, who placed 25th in the 300-meter with a time of 37.57 seconds. Jehle also received top-10 all-time recognition. Junior Greg Izzo placed seventh in the 60-meter hurdles, earning top-10 distinction with his time of 8.75 seconds. In the field events, senior Wenley Louis took fourth with a 7.02-meter long jump.
On the women's side, the Knights were well represented in the 5,000-meter run. The first four overall finishers were Geneseo runners. Sophomore Danae Polsin led the pack and recorded a time of 18:28.30, while freshman Alyssa Knott, senior Ashley Jones and sophomore Rebeka Steinke took second, third and fourth, respectively.
"It was a good test for us," Prevosti said. "It was an interesting meet because Cornell holds events that aren't usually contested [like the 3,000-meter] … Much of our track season is about qualifying for our next meet, but this meet was in itself. People got a sense of how they are doing."
Geneseo competes next on Thursday Dec. 8 at the Rochester Institute of Technology.