ROCHESTER, N.Y. - The Cortland women's cross team finished in 12th place out of 18 schools at the Roberts Wesleyan Harry F. Anderson Cross Country Invitational.

Eliza Nichols (Smithtown/Smithtown West) was Cortland's top finisher on the 5,000-meter course at the Matt St. James Cross Country Trails. She finished in 36th place out of 243 runners in 19:54.3. Ashley Watson of Roberts Wesleyan won in 18:29.4.

Maddie Ciuffetelli (Dix Hills/Half Hollow Hills East) turned in a 51st-place time of 20:12.9 and Sam Himes (Buffalo/Sweet Home) was 67th in 20:28.6. Courtney Schoepflin (Chaffee/Pioneer) crossed the finish line 79th in 20:42.4.

Four other Red Dragons finished within 10 seconds of each other and all were in the top half of the field. Gabby Moncada (Tully) was 103rd (21:09.9), followed by Courtney Maurin (Pine Bush) in 104th (21:10.4). Jill Leggiero (East Greenbush/Columbia) finished 106th (21:13.4) and Shannon Imbornoni (Plainview/Our Lady of Mercy Academy) ended 109th (21:19.3).

Cortland finished with a team score of 284 points, 10 points shy of Buffalo State. The Division II host school won the title with 40 points, followed by Geneseo (87), Division II Mercyhurst (115), Division I St. Bonaventure (130) and Division II Gannon (137).

Cortland will travel to Lehigh University next Saturday for the Paul Short Run.

Complete Results:
Women
Men

Coach's Corner - Comments from Head Coach Steve Patrick following the Roberts Wesleyan Invitational

We're quite excited about how today went!  Our men's team made some really great strides – sorry for the awful pun – with pretty much the entire roster.  We had a plan today of being extra relaxed through the first loop to work on closing hard through the second loop of the course, and it appeared to pay off quite well.  Obviously Cabel McCandless, Ryan Konotopskyj and Chris Thorpe did really great work to move up to 10th, 11th, and 12th, but our top four freshmen of Mike Verde, Clayton Santiago,  Hunter Braun and Cody Laettner also did a fantastic job of committing to work through the second half of the race and really move up through the field.  The top three guys are all in our all-time top 10 list for this course, while Mike and Clayton are now members of our all-time top 10 freshmen list on this course.
 
The Lady Red Dragons were not going to be outdone by the men!  We went into the meet with a similar goal of really pushing our limits on the third mile, and every single one of the women that raced today were able to accomplish that – every member of the team had the 3rd miles as their fastest mile on the day!  As a team we followed the race plan exceptionally well!  I think a little more impressively is that all but one of the ladies ran the 2nd half of the third mile much faster than any other part of the race.  With distance running it can be hard to know how to push yourself from far away, and the ladies did a tremendous job of it!  To be fair, the one member of the team that didn't get faster in the second half of that mile was only 1 second off what she ran in the first half.  Eliza Nichols joined our all-time top 10 list in a workout which is a great sign for the future, while freshmen Maddie Ciuffetelli and Courtney Schoepflin are now a part of the all-time top 10 freshmen list.  It's easy to see why we're so excited from the results of this weekend!