ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Vanessa Burkard (Newfane) and Rachel Castello (Cheektowaga/West Seneca East) each placed in the top 40 and five other Red Dragons finished in the top half of the field as Cortland finished in sixth place at the Roberts Wesleyan Harry F. Anderson Women's Cross Country Invitational.
 
Cortland scored 187 points, 28 ahead of Division II Le Moyne's seventh-place score. Geneseo won with 24 points, followed by Division II Stonehill with 58. A total of 15 teams competed.
 
Burkard finished 13th out of 186 runners on a 5,000-meter layout in 18 minutes, 59.6 seconds. Windsor Ardner of Geneseo was the individual champion in 18:11.1. Castello ended in 36th place in 19:49.5.
 
Khalifah Tracey (Greenville) hit the finish line in 51st place (20:14.1), while Cat Zamroz (Levittown/Island Trees) and Sophie Steger (Montgomery/Valley Central) finished side-by-side in 68th (20:41.1) and 69th (20:41.2) place, respectively. Marlee Angus (Penfield) placed 78th (20:56.1) and Devin Reilly (Irvington) was 86th (21:07.4).
 
Two other Red Dragons cracked the top 100. Courtney Schoepflin (Chaffee/Pioneer) ended in 94th place (21:27.7) and Sydney Smith (Greenville) was 99th (21:37.3).
 
Cortland returns to action next Saturday at Geneseo's Mike Woods Invitational.

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

We took a bit more of a 'chance' this week with the Lady Red Dragons by focusing on being more assertive in the race early – and with that challenging goal we may have made a few more mistakes in our racing today. However, today provides us with a much stronger opportunity for learning, and we're excited that we able to do that. Despite some challenges, the performance of the team was an exciting step in the right direction! Vanessa Burkard ran the 4th-fastest time we have ever had on that course, which is exciting as a measure of where she currently is and where she can be at the end of the season! Rachel Castello's time certainly indicates a solid effort from her as well, and predicts good things for us at the conference and regional level. Sophie Steger made a strong run to finish the day as our 5th runner, which is encouraging for the overall depth of the team right now. Probably the biggest breakthrough of the day belongs to firstyear Deirdre Sullivan, who put together a very strong effort on the day to finish quite well in the race! We're excited to take another step forward with next week's races on the Regional Championships course.
 
The men's team had to stay focused on team tactics after a less-than-ideal performance last week,  and they really showed a great effort on the day! I had challenged the men to be a lot more disciplined and to see if they could work to achieve a tight pack up front, and they really performed well. We saw a lot of great leadership – especially from Mike Verde – and a 30-second spread from our 1 – 5 runners! We didn't have everything work out exactly as we had hoped on the day, but it was a tremendous improvement for us!  We also so some all-timer performances from the men, as Ryan Cory moved into the #9 slot in our all-time list. The men have a big challenge as we head to the Regional Championships course next weekend, but that's exciting for us to have that opportunity!