CLINTON, N.Y. – Four Cortland runners notched top-50 finishes as the Red Dragons competed at the Hamilton College Women's Cross Country Short Course Invitational.

Freshman McKenzie Dombroski (Chittenango) was the team's top finisher with a 24th-place time of 16:12.7 over a 4,000-meter layout at the Hamilton College Golf Course. Ithaca's Parley Hannan was the individual champion in 14:41.9, followed by Ashley Watson of Roberts Wesleyan in 15:37.5.

Junior Sam Himes (Amherst/Sweet Home) crossed the finish line in 27th place (16:15.7). Sophomore Madison Ciuffetelli (Dix Hills/Half Hollow Hills East) placed 43rd (16:36.3) and senior Courtney Maurin (Pine Bush) finished 48th (16:41.5).

Three other Red Dragons finished in the top 85 of the 156-runner field. Junior Cat Zamroz (Levittown/Island Trees) was 67th in 17:06.3, senior Eliza Nichols (Smithtown/Smithtown West) finished 72nd in 17:17.2, and sophomore Courtney Schoepflin (Chaffee/Pioneer) turned in an 85th-place finish in 17:28.5.

Cortland finished eighth out of 10 schools with a team score of 172 points. The Red Dragons actually tied Nazareth's point total, but the Golden Flyers earned the seventh spot based on a tiebreaker procedure. Cortland was just three points behind sixth-place St. John Fisher, 12 behind fifth-place Le Moyne and 15 behind fourth-place Brockport. Roberts Wesleyan won the meet with 27 points.

Cortland returns to action next Saturday at the University of Rochester Yellowjacket Invitational.

Complete Results:
Women
Men

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

If I were to grade the team's performance today, both the men and the women would have pretty similar scores.  For effort and toughness, both teams did pretty darn well – maybe a B+ or an A-.  And I'm usually known as a tough grader!  The women ran on a course that was a lot harder and slower than last week, and all nearly all were close to or significantly improved in terms of times, which is awesome!  Both teams had the chance to race a bit of a deeper field, which is also important as we are learning how to work together and compete well.
 
Both teams didn't do as well with decision making today, which was a little disappointing, but offers a good learning experience for us.  Mis-steps in the execution of our racing plan are going to happen, and offer great chances to develop the skills necessary to not repeat them.  A great number of the team finished the final mile or half-mile of the race quite quickly today, which is a good portend for the remainder of the season!
 
The Lady Red Dragons kept their 1-5 spread under a minute, which is a really nice achievement, and a lot of credit goes to junior Cat Zamroz for really pushing to keep the gap close as our 5th finisher today!  We had a lot of excellent teamwork and pace groups today, which is exciting to see!  We also had our entire team that ran today under the 20-minute mark, which is a nice accomplishment for the program.  I should also make mention of freshman McKenzie Dombroski coming through the line first for the team in 24th place!  It's always great to have newcomers race so tough!
 
The men had their spread from 1-9 under a minute, so we are pretty darn pleased with our depth and our pack mentality right now.  While the depth in our freshman class has been pretty special this year, freshmen Cameron Szabo and Ryan Cory performed quite well this morning in the race, doing an excellent job of hanging on to some of our upperclassmen to get pulled through to a nice performance.
 
Next week we have our first chance to race the 'championship distance' of 6000 meters for the women and 8000 meters for the men at the University of Rochester Invitational.