ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Eliza Nichols (Smithtown/Smithtown West) led five Cortland runners who finished in the top half of a 212-competitor field at the University of Rochester Women's Cross Country Yellowjacket Invitational. The 6,000-meter event was conducted at Genesee Valley Park.

Nichols finished in 53rd place in 25:31.3. Rochester's Rachel Bargabos won the race in 22:45.6. Sydney Smith (Niskayuna) placed 59th in 25:39.0 and Maddie Ciuffetelli (Dix Hills/Half Hollow Hills East) was 72nd in 25:51.0. Sam Himes (Buffalo/Sweet Home) crossed the finish line in 89th place (26:15.5) and Shayna Will (Endicott/Seton Catholic) was 95th (26:21.4).

Cortland finished 11th out of 16 schools in the final team standings with 278 points, just seven behind Fredonia and 28 better than Buffalo State. Geneseo and Rochester claimed the top two team spots, respectively.

Cortland will head to Roberts Wesleyan next weekend?

Complete Results:
Women
Men

Coach's Corner - Comments from Head Coach Steve Patrick following the women's and men's races at Rochester:

Today was the first 6k for the women, and the first 8k for the men of the season. Cross country is a strange sport – the championship distance increases by 20% for the women and 60% for the men. That's pretty insane! You don't see that in a lot of other sports, and it is quite an adjustment for our younger folks.
 
The men's team had overall a pretty good day.  Freshmen Mike Verde and Clayton Santiago had really nice efforts in their first 'real' distance race to be our 4th and 5th runners. While we weren't firing on all cylinders during the race today, we're quite pleased with the 6th place team finish. Returning to the Rochester area next weekend for another 8k should be a pretty good opportunity for our guys to start to learn the distance.
 
The ladies had a number of good efforts, but we still have a ways to come on running together as a team. The longer distance today gave us a bit of trouble, so I'm quite glad that we have the chance to go back to a 5k distance next weekend in Rochester to work on those tactics in a little less stressful of an environment. For both genders, today was a very good learning experience, and we're quite pleased as coaches with our the teams are responding to the challenges we are putting in front of them.