Vote Blaze in Mascot Madness Challenge

03/05/2013 

The bracket’s been built and SUNY Cortland has taken the top overall seed.

Now, it’s time to make Blaze, the College’s red dragon mascot, the winner of SUNY’s first-ever Mascot Madness challenge.

The competition, which relies on online voting, began March 4 and runs for five weeks. SUNY institutions are competing in a standard single-elimination format in one-week rounds.

Voters can weigh in once per match-up in each round on SUNY’s blog. As the top overall seed, SUNY Cortland has a bye for the first round. Seeding was determined based on the number of varsity teams a campus fields, with enrollment numbers used to break any ties.

Blaze will meet either Perseus, the SUNY Purchase Panther, or Hugo, the SUNY New Paltz Hawk, in second round action, which kicks off Tuesday, March 12.

Thirty SUNY campuses — representing 472 athletic teams and more than 220,000 students — will compete in the inaugural Mascot Madness challenge.

The complete voting schedule follows:

Round 1: Monday, March 4, at noon to Sunday, March 10, at 11 p.m.

Round 2: Tuesday, March 12, at noon to Sunday, March 17, at 11 p.m.

Round 3: Tuesday, March 19, at noon to Friday, March 22, at noon

Round 4: Monday, March 25, at noon to Thursday, March 28, at noon

Round 5: Friday, March 29, at noon to Thursday, April 4 at noon

Voters are encouraged to like SUNY Cortland on Facebook, follow @SUNY_Cortland on Twitter and use #CortlandPride and #MascotMadness to stay current with the competition.

Learn more about how you can help and vote.