GENESEO, N.Y. – Cortland's Cat Zamroz (Levittown/Island Trees) and Rachel Castello (Cheektowaga/West Seneca East) earned all-region honors with top-35 finishes at the NCAA Division III Niagara Region (Region 3) Women's Cross Country Championships, hosted by Geneseo at the National Warplane Museum.
 
Zamroz finished in 32nd place out of 142 runners in 24 minutes, 29.1 seconds over 6,000 meters. Castello was 33rd in 24:32.7, hitting the finish line a couple of seconds ahead of the final two all-region runners. Geneseo's Windsor Ardner was the regional champion in 22:10.7.
 
Four other Cortland runners finished in the top half of the field. Vanessa Burkard (Newfane) was 46th in 25:00.3 and Marlee Angus (Penfield) finished 49th in 25:01.6. Sydney Smith (Greenville) turned in a 60th-place time of 25:33.9 and Devin Reilly (Irvington) was 64th in 25:40.9. Courtney Schoepflin (Chaffee/Pioneer) just missed the top half of the standings with a 74th-place time of 26:02.5.
 
Cortland finished ninth out of 20 schools in the final team standings with 218 points. Geneseo was the team champion with 19 points, followed by Rochester with 70. The Red Dragons were the second-best SUNYAC team in the standings behind the champion Knights. Under the new NCAA format this year, the team winner from each of 10 regional championships earns an automatic berth to nationals, with the remaining 22 spots chosen on an at-large basis by a national committee.

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

Bittersweet is probably the best word I can come up with to describe the day. The women's team probably had their best team effort of the season, which is certainly encouraging! There's still a lot of room to grow as a program, but today was a tremendous step in the right direction for us. I'm thrilled that the team embraced what we were trying to work on after the SUNYAC championships, and the results provided nice tangible evidence, as we pretty handily beat teams that had beaten us there.

Even though every aspect didn't work out they way we thought they could have, it was a great way to end the season, especially considering that this was the first season of collegiate cross country for three of the seven ladies; only senior, Cat Zamroz, had run in the regional championships before during her career! Obviously for Cat to finish her career as an all-regional performer is outstanding, and for Rachel Castello, in her first regional championships, to also earn all-regional honors is wonderful as well! Both moved up the entire race, as did Marlee Angus, which is the way we emphasize racing.
 
Certainly having the regional champion on the men's side is thrilling, and knowing that Ryan Cory has earned his trip to the NCAA Championships next weekend in Louisville, Kentucky is also exciting! Ryan ran a very tough and very smart race to move up through the field, he was in 85th at the 1000-meter split, about 13 seconds off the lead, but nearly right on his pace for the race. By the 4000-meter mark, he was less than two seconds off the lead, and had them squarely in his sights.  It was a mature, patient, and tough effort by him, and it was a well-deserved victory!

Having two other men – Mike Verde and Hunter Brignall – earn all-regional honors is great achievement as well. RJ Davis put together his third great effort in four weeks, and was the 6th-highest true freshman in the race, which is a pretty good accomplishment; fifth man Gavin Watkins ran the second-fastest time of his career on a course that was somewhat slippery, so he certainly had a strong effort on the day as well! We gave away a few points here and there on the day, but also know that the teams in front of us ran well. We raced tough and fought hard through the event, and have a lot to be proud of with the improvement we have made through the season.