HOUGHTON, N.Y. – Eight Cortland runners finished in the top 30 to help the Red Dragons earn a fourth-place team finish at the Houghton Highlander Invitational women's cross country race.
 
Cortland finished with 95 points. Daemen was the champion with 22 points in a field of nine teams.
 
Cortland's top seven finished in order between 17th and 23rd place in the field of 95 runners. Kristin Ieva (North Babylon) started that group in 17th place in 24 minutes, 21.1 seconds over 6,000 meters.
 
Vanessa Burkard (Newfane) was next in 24:23.9, followed by Khalifah Tracey (Greenville) (24:26.3), Rachel Castello (Cheektowaga/West Seneca East) (24:27.7), Marlee Angus (Penfield) (24:31.4), Devin Reilly (Irvington) (24:37.6) and Adrienne Martin (Cincinnatus/Norwich) (24:38.1). Sydney Smith (Greenville) wasn't far behind that pack of seven with a 26th-place finish (24:46.5).
 
Daemen's Marcy Colca won the race in 22:57.5.
 
Cortland will head to New Jersey next Saturday to compete at Rowan University's Inter-Regional Border Battle.

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

Since the men raced first I'll begin with comments about their race effort today. Things went about as good as we could have hoped for overall. We went into today to work on how our main group could 'close' over the final two miles, so the group was intentionally reserved through the 3 mile mark (we also held out our top 4 guys to focus on training, so we weren't worried about the overall team score). It was quite a sight to see a pack of eight men come around the corner at the 3 mile mark, looking very relaxed! Those top eight really pushed over the final two miles, as each of them ran a faster pace over the final two miles as compared to the first three. It's worth noting that Brandon Mulholland, in his first 8k, broke our firstyear record for the course!

We had a similar strategy for the women's team to stay intentionally relaxed and packed together through the two mile mark. It was a really nice surprise to see a pack of eight together still at the three mile mark! The top seven were able to get faster over each mile of the race, which is very encouraging for next week's race at Rowan. Having the team stuck together (our top five were only separated by 10 seconds at the finish) is a pretty remarkable achievement. I think the way that Vanessa Burkard and Khalifah Tracey focused on the team performance as compared to their individual efforts was very important to help us grow as a program, and it is very much appreciated.

The upcoming 'Inter-regional Rumble' at Rowan is a great opportunity to see how we stack up next weekend. We've been putting in good consistent work, and are excited for the chance to really compete next Saturday.