MOUNT MORRIS, N.Y. – Cortland's women finished sixth out of 21 teams, and was the fifth collegiate finisher, at the Mike Woods Cross Country Invitational. Geneseo hosted the meet at Letchworth State Park.

Cortland registered a score of 203 points, three better than The College of New Jersey and 15 ahead of SUNY-ESF. Geneseo won the meet with 37 points, followed by RIT (75), Rochester (85), a Geneseo Alumni Team (88), Ithaca (140) and Cortland.

Sydney Smith (Niskayuna) led the Red Dragons with a 25th place finish in 23:50.4 over 6,000 meters. A total of 251 runners finished the race, with Geneseo's Genny Corcoran taking top honors in 21:19.7.

Sam Himes (Amherst/Sweet Home) and Madison Ciuffetelli (Dix Hills/Half Hollow Hills East) placed 44th (24:25.0) and 25th (24:26.2), respectively. McKenzie Dombroski (Chittenango) finished in 66th place (25:06.5) and Courtney Maurin (Pine Bush) was 69th (25:09.5).

Rounding out Cortland's top seven finishers were Cat Zamroz (Levittown/Island Trees) in 90th place (25:40.1) and Jill Leggiero (East Greenbush/Columbia) in 94th place (25:43.2).

The Red Dragons will compete at the Lehigh University Paul Short Run next Saturday, Oct. 5.

Complete Results:
Women
Men

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

The women's team had an outstanding day out there!  Getting in front of TCNJ – a team that is ranked regionally and nationally this fall, and that was an NCAA qualifier last fall – is a great measure or things going well for the program!  We still have room for improvement – we're inclined to believe that pretty much everybody can run faster with more experience racing as well as more training – but certainly saw some great things today, and it wasn't limited to our top five.  In particular our freshmen ladies did some great work, as Sera King, Lexi MacAneney, Rachel Castello, and Samantha Kenny all had significant PRs in their second 6k of their careers, while Marlee Angus and McKenzie Dombroski ran quite well in their first attempts at the championship distance.  Kenzie earned a spot in our all-time top 10 list for freshmen, which is quite an achievement considering that in the past we have pretty much only run this course for conference and regional championships.  On the other end of the spectrum, the seniors that ran today – Courtney Maurin and Jill Leggiero – were both excellent and did a lot to help with the team's overall performance, and both ran one of the faster times of their career.
 
I wish I could say that the men's team had as good of a day, but momma always told me that I shouldn't lie.  We actually had a better day than our results would indicate, as a number of our younger team members made good progress with PRs or near-PRs on what turned out to be a pretty hot day.  Three of the guys that had been in our top 5 weren't up there today, mostly due to injury or illness, and that had a big impact on our score, but we also had people really step up and do some great things.  In particular, Dan Gross, in his first cross country season with us, ran a tremendous race, and was pretty close to his fastest 5k ever on the way to his fastest 8k ever.  It's always awesome to see somebody progress like that through his career!  It was also a great sign that our 4/5/6 runners on the day – Ryan Konotopskyj, James Forte, and Nolan Vest are all seniors coming back from an injury that has limited them through the past couple of weeks or in some cases through a lot of the summer.  Our next three men – John Meskos, Gavin Watkins, and Josh Nogaret – are all freshmen. While the overall results weren't what we had expected on the day, we are pretty positive about the direction we are heading in.
 
On a related note, the past couple of weekends have been pretty tremendous for Cortland XC/TF alumni – with Jack Flood finishing fourth in the Thorpe Cup (the annual USA – Germany decathlon competition), Melique Garcia, representing Honduras, finishing third in his heat in the 100 meters at the IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, and Cortland sprinting legend Stefan Mascoll being inducted into the C Club Hall of Fame on Saturday!