ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Cortland men's cross country team finished in seventh place out of 24 schools at the NCAA Division III Niagara Region (Region 3) Championships, hosted by the University of Rochester.
 
Cortland finished with 214 points. Geneseo won the title with 41 points, followed by Brockport at 77 and NYU with 114.
 
Two Red Dragon runners earned all-region honors by virtue of their top-35 finishes in the 172-runner field. Hunter Brignall (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) was 31st in 26 minutes, 33.5 seconds over 8,000 meters. Cameron Szabo (Owego/Owego Free Academy) placed 33rd in 26:37.6. Geneseo's Nick Andrews won the race in 24:47.7.
 
Cortland's next four finishers all placed in the top half of the field. RJ Davis (Cicero/Cicero-North Syracuse) was 42nd in 26:44.6, Harry Tomasi (Port Jervis) placed 46th in 26:51.7, Ryan Cory (Beacon) was 62nd in 27:16.6, and Ben Zinger (Liverpool) finished 83rd in 27:51.4. Tom Adamescu (Canandaigua/Canandaigua Academy) rounded out Cortland's contingent with a 96th-place time of 28:34.6.
 
Geneseo earned an automatic berth to the NCAA Division III Championships by winning the regional title. Other regional finishers are eligible for at-large selections, and the top seven runners not on teams chosen for nationals qualify for the championship individually. Cortland is unlikely to earn either a team or individual spot at nationals.

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

It's sad that this is the last one of these for the year!
 
First, I'd like to make sure to congratulate our three all-regional award winners! It's always an accomplishment to earn a tangible recognition like this, and there's little room for error in that you only get the chance to earn it on one day in our sport. It's a credit to Khalifah Tracey, Hunter Brignall, and Cam Szabo that they were able to earn that through their performance out there today.
 
I'm incredibly pleased with the progress that the women's team made through the season. They've responded quite well to the challenges through the season with training and racing, and definitely worked hard out there today. While we didn't execute every part of the race plan as well as we had hoped for, we were tough when in counted, and that's a great place to head into the future from. Besides Khalifah, I'd like to make mention of the races that Adrienne Martin and Marlee Angus had today! Marlee in particular had an exceptional performance on the day, I believe it was the finest race of her cross country career!
 
The men also generally raced tough today. It was a challenge for us with Ryan Cory dealing with an injury for the second half of the season, as it limited his performance level, but that wasn't something that the guys used as an excuse to not push through the race today. Seeing Cam take the chance to really push today was great, but Harry Tomasi had a great rebound effort to close out the cross country season – it was a great measure of growth for him. RJ Davis came through with a strong performance today – he really pushed through the entire race, which was also a great step forward in growth for him.
 
We also need to acknowledge and thank the individuals that have definitely ran their final cross country race as Red Dragons – for the women, Marlee Angus and Vanessa Burkard; for the men Tom Adamescu, Ryan Cory, and Ben Zinger put on the red and white singlet for the final time. For Ryan, this marks the end of his career as an intercollegiate athlete as he graduates (a semester early!) in December before starting his career with Disney's Wide World of Sports. These folks have certainly experienced the widest range of what intercollegiate athletics can be as they navigated the COVID-19 pandemic during their intercollegiate careers.