ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Six Cortland runners finished in the top 50 out of more than 200 competitors to help the Red Dragons place sixth in the team standings at the Roberts Wesleyan Harry F. Anderson Men's Cross Country Invitational.
 
Cortland finished with a score of 164 points, just four behind fifth-place Division I St. Bonaventure and 37 ahead of seventh-place Division II Adelphi. Stonehill, another Division II school, won the title with 55 points, while the host Red Hawks, also Division II, and the University of Rochester each finished with 66 points. A total of 18 teams competed.
 
Ryan Cory (Beacon) finished in 24th place over the 8,000-meter course in 26 minutes, 37.1 seconds. Mike Verde (Hopewell Junction/Arlington) was 30th in 26:50.1 and Hunter Brignall (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) was 31st in 26:55.4. Shane Pease of Roberts Wesleyan won the race in 25:39.0.
 
Harry Tomasi (Port Jervis) turned in a 37th-place time of 27:02.4 and Cameron Szabo (Owego/Owego Free Academy) placed 42nd in 27:07.2. Gavin Watkins (Endicott/Owego Free Academy) rounded out Cortland's contingent of top-50 finishers with a 50th-place time of 27:13.9.
 
The next five Cortland finishers crossed the line within an nine-place range. Josh Koeppe (Bridgeport/Cicero-North Syracuse) was 74th (28:03.7), followed by Brandon Mancroni (Rock Hil/Monticello) in 76th (28:06.6) and Clayton Santiago (Bethpage) in 77th (28:08.2). Matt Mullen (Mastic/William Floyd) finished in 79th place (28:11.4) and Jed Swayze (Preble/Homer) was 82nd (28:16.3).
 
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!