PREBLE, N.Y. – Three Cortland runners earned all-league honors as the Red Dragons finished in second place at the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Men's Cross Country Championships. Cortland hosted the championship at Dwyer Memorial Park.
 
Cortland registered a team score of 66 points, 19 ahead of third-place Brockport (85) and easily ahead of fourth-place Oneonta (128). Ten schools competed, with nine fielding compete teams for scoring. Geneseo won its seventh straight league crown with 19 points. Cortland entered the race ranked sixth in the Niagara Region by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCA).
 
Senior Mike Verde (Hopewell Junction/Arlington) finished in fourth place in 27 minutes, 1.4 seconds and junior Ryan Cory (Beacon) placed fifth in 27:05.1 over a muddy and sloppy 8,000-meter course to earn first team all-league honors. Junior Hunter Brignall (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) picked up third team All-SUNYAC recognition with a 14th-place effort of 28:07.1. A total of 100 runners competed. The top five finishers are first team all-league, spots 6-10 are second team, and 11-15 are third team. Geneseo's Riley Grossman won the race in 26:52.7.
 
With their performances, Verde and Cory also earned spots in the SUNYAC Men's Cross Country Hall of Fame. That honor is bestowed upon runners who finish in the top five of the conference meet at least once, in the top 10 twice, or the top 15 three times.
 
Freshman RJ Davis (Cicero/Cicero-North Syracuse) earned a 29th-place finish with a time of 29:15.8, followed by junior Gavin Watkins (Endicott/Owego Free Academy) in 31st place at 29:21.5. Freshman Rob Davidson (Setauket/Ward Melville) placed 43rd (29:56.1), while sophomore Brandon Mancroni (Rock Hill/Monticello) and junior Harry Tomasi (Port Jervis) were both timed at 30:18.5, with Mancroni officially 51st and Tomasi 52nd.
 
Cortland will compete at the NCAA Division III Region Three Championships Nov. 13 at Geneseo.

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

Hosting a conference championships is a difficult undertaking, so I want to make sure that we start by thanking the people that went above and beyond to make this happen! In no particular order, I'd like to thank Cortland County and in particular the Highway Department for working with us to make Dwyer Park accessible and ready, the grounds crew at SUNY Cortland for their efforts painting and preparing the course, our athletic administration, but in particular Tom Cranfield for the behind-the-scenes work and Jaclyn Lawrence for a tremendous amount of management of the event today, Machel Phelps of the Cortland Regional Sports Council for helping secure the facility and working with us to manage the event, our athletic training staff, especially Celeste Boyer for taking care of the competing athletes, and from our staff coach Jordyn Naylon who spent countless hours measuring, marking, and preparing the course while serving as the meet director, as well as Bob Vidulich, a retired high school and SUNY Cortland cross country coach who was always ready and willing to drop everything and head out to the course to help make it ready.
 
With all the rain we had this week, the course was wet and muddy – there was very little that can be done. I watched two of our team slip and go down, and know that a number of other folks had a tough time as well. I'm pretty happy with the toughness those folks showed to get up and run when it counted. In some spots it was too deep for the spikes to make a difference! I feel like our women ran hard, but didn't get into the right position. I'm not displeased with the effort that we had overall, and am confident that this can be a good learning experience for us moving forward. In a smaller-sized field like this was, the race can get strung out pretty quickly, and we didn't catch the right groups soon enough. Courtney Schoepflin really had a strong performance on the day – probably the best on the team. She's really responded well over the past couple of weeks and has made the decision to be much more focused and tough, and it has paid off!
 
The men's race was pretty strange for us in that we had some really outstanding performances, and a few places where things didn't go as well as we were hoping for. Out depth really paid off a lot today – freshman RJ Davis made a tremendous move to jump up to be our 4th scorer today, which was pretty huge for us. Hunter Brignall really committed well today – in his second and third loops he moved up 7 people each time, and got a few more on the last loop to earn an all-conference spot. Obviously Mike Verde and Ryan Cory turned in exceptional performances, as both earned first-team all conference honors, along with induction into the SUNYAC Cross Country Hall of Fame! Last but not least, Gavin Watkins ran a really tough effort on the day – he made a great move on the second lap to move up, and really ran tough over the 2nd half of the course to hold onto his spot!
 
We get a solid couple of weeks of training and peaking in before heading to the Rochester area for the NCAA Regional Championships.