The endurance crosscut sawing pair, Jason Stekyl (Hemlock) and Mike Ottley (Churchville) ran an undefeated season in competitions with Syracuse Environmental Science and Forestry, Paul Smith's College, SUNY Cobleskill and the SUNY Ranger School at Wanakena. Stekyl and Ottley placed fourth in a field of 23 teams in the underhand chop at the major Canadian meet in Lindsay, Ontario. The FLCC men, including Matt Hass (Bristol), Andy Clement (Canandaigua), Greg Cocquyt (Victor), Joe Morse (Canandaigua) and John Hunt (Churchville) placed consistently in second or third place in the team crosscut, team bowsaw, pulp toss for accuracy and the packboard relay race. Individual performers demonstrated significant depth in the singles events. Hunt won the axe throw contest at the Cumming Nature Center home meet. Both Ottley and Clement made very strong showings in the chainsaw and tree climbing events. The FLCC women underhand choppers, Holly Coyle (Ovid), Sarah McGregor (Oswego) and Colleen Congdon (Canandaigua), won at the Cumming meet, took second by less than a second at the Paul Smith's meet and second out of ten women's teams at the Sir Sandford Fleming College meet in Canada. The women's team including Bridgid Allen (Farmington), Andrea Porter (Pulaski), Stephanie Mueller (Farmington), Angelina Barnes (LeRoy), Annie Allison (Hornell) and Katrina Rupersberger (Canandaigua) commanded a particularly strong crosscut and bowsawing season with mostly first and second place finishes throughout. At the final competition in Canada, the women's team demonstrated consistent improvement in the relay events with second place finishes in both the pulp toss for accuracy and log roll and deck. Outstanding in the singles events was Barnes' second place in the pulp toss for distance event at the Cumming meet. The final fall competition with 40 teams from the United States and Canada found the FLCC women third overall behind McGill University and Nova Scotia Agricultural College and the men fourth, behind McGill University, ESF and the University of New Brunswick. Ottley, Coyle and Allison graduate in December to enter ESF with intent to join at least six other formerly FLCC Woodsmen on the ESF teams. The FLCC teams will compete at McGill University, West Virginia State University, Syracuse EHF and Dartmouth College in the spring. Both the men and the women seek their 15th North Eastern North American championship at the 58th Annual Spring Meet at Dartmouth College in April. FLCC intends to host the 59th Annual Spring Meet in Canandaigua in April, 2005 to compete against up to 20 other colleges and universities. FLCC and Penn State Mont Alto are the only two year schools in the circuit. FLCC graduate Andrea Robarge (Middlesex) won her second North American professional crosscut sawing title in 2003 and represented one of the top six Timbersports women in the United States in the international competition in New Zealand last February. Dave Jewett (Pittsford) dropped from second overall (2002) to seventh (2003) in the ESPN Stihl Timbersports World Championship. |
