MILTON, N.Y. - The Cortland men's cross country squad finished in fourth place out of 10 schools at the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Championships, hosted by SUNY New Paltz at the Hudson Valley Sports Dome.

Cortland finished with 125 points, 15 ahead of fifth-place New Paltz. Geneseo captured its sixth straight league title with 23 points, followed by Oneonta (50) and Brockport (94).

All of Cortland's top seven runners finished in the top 50 of the 117-runner field. Cabel McCandless (Lindenhurst) was 22nd over the 8,000-meter course in 26:40.5, followed by Mike Verde (Hopewell Junction/Arlington) in 23rd (26:41.8) and Nolan Vest (Coram/Longwood) in 24th (26:46.3). Geneseo's Sean McAneny won the race in 25:28.0.

Chad Dunham (Central Square/Paul V. Moore) crossed the finish line in 34th place (27:08.5). Clayton Santiago (Bethpage) was 36th (27:15.1) and Hunter Braun (Rochester/Victor) placed 37th (27:18.4). Dan Gross (East Moriches/Center Moriches) turned in a 47th-place effort in 27:37.3.

Cortland returns to action Saturday, Nov. 16, at the NCAA Division III Atlantic Regionals in Canton, hosted by St. Lawrence University.

Complete Results:
Men
Women

Coach's Corner - Comments from Cortland Head Coach Steve Patrick:

First, I'd like to thank the parents, friends, and alumni that made the trip to support the program today.  We had a lot of folks show up and cheer for us which is very much appreciated!

On Friday night as part of our team meetings we talked about with both the men's and the women's teams that if teams were going to be in front of us, we wanted to make them earn it, and that's something we did really well today.

Sophomore Mike Verde and senior Nolan Vest had tremendous runs for us today, and certainly deserve recognition for what they did!  While we didn't have every guy on the team have a great race today, it wasn't for a lack of effort and dedication. It was great to see our team move up a spot in the team standings, and when looking at how young our team is overall there's a lot to be encouraged about for our future.

The women raced great, which makes the third-place finish frustrating especially after the runner-up finish last year, but we have to hand it to New Paltz for their effort today.  There can be an advantage in hosting, and the New Paltz team certainly capitalized on that opportunity today, and that's to their credit.  We're proud of our effort, and are excited about the direction we are taking.

There's a huge number of positive results that happened today; one of the strongest indicators for our women is that our 7th runner today was ahead of the 2nd runner for the teams behind us; of course having three All-Conference runners (junior Sam Himes, sophomore Sydney Smith, and freshman McKenzie Dombroski) is a great measure of the positive progress the program is moving in.

Half of the squad that ran today starts indoor on Monday after a week-deserved day off tomorrow; cross country season continues for our top runners in two weeks at the Atlantic Regional Championships in Canton NY hosted by St. Lawrence University.