OSWEGO, N.Y. – The Cortland men's and women's cross country teams opened the 2022 season by competing at the Oswego Invitational. The Red Dragon men won the team title in a field of seven schools. The women only had four individual runners compete. The races were held over a 5,000-meter course at Fallbrook Field.
 
Cortland's top seven runners in the men's race all finished in the top 15 out of 96 entrants as the Red Dragons finished with 28 team points. Plattsburgh was second with 59, followed by Oneonta (70), SUNY-ESF (76), Oswego (144), Onondaga Community College (186) and Potsdam (199).
 
Senior Ryan Cory (Beacon) won the race in 16 minutes, 25.7 seconds. Senior Harry Tomasi (Port Jervis) was second in 16:45.1, senior Hunter Brignall (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) was sixth in 17:02.1 and senior Cameron Szabo (Owego/Owego Free Academy) placed eighth in 17:19.9. Freshman Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) ended up in 11th place (17:34.2), graduate student Clayton Santiago (Bethpage) placed 14th (17:41.8) and senior Ben Zinger (Liverpool) was 15th (17:52.2).
 
Freshman Kristin Ieva (North Babylon) was 12th out of 44 runners in the women's race in 22 minutes, 52.7 seconds. Sophomore Melanie Walsh (Ronkonkoma/Connetquot) finished 13th (22:56.5), junior Anika Parnell (Corinth) finished 15th (24:03.4) and sophomore Cherise Mack (Johnson City) crossed the finish line in 27th place (25:32.3).
 
Cortland will compete next Saturday at the Rochester Yellowjacket Invitational.

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

I'm sending these thoughts and musings out a bit later than normal as last night the SUNY Cortland C-Club hosted the 2022 Induction Ceremonies for the C-Club Hall of Fame. It was great to have a chance to see so many of our distinguished alumni and Hall of Fame members; it was especially great from my perspective to see Michelle Franklin Rauber inducted yesterday, along with former chair of the physical education department Dr. Jerry Casciani.

The Oswego meet was overall a pretty good experience. We wanted to start the season with a low-key effort, and have a chance to see the course that the conference meet is going to be contested on. We found out that the course is going to be rather slow, but overall it seems to be a challenging, fair, and enjoyable course! Unfortunately that information we only learned after the fact, so some of my instructions about what to do weren't as accurate as they would be on a course we know.

Despite that disadvantage, a large number of the men did some excellent work on the day! We focus on being in control of the things we can control, and we had individuals that did an excellent job with that. Despite the uncertain conditions, we still saw a faster second 'lap' on the course from Ryan Cory, Harry Tomasi, and Ben Zinger. That's something we consider an excellent display of toughness and maturity while out there!

The Lady Red Dragons benefited from having a slightly more accurate race plan since we had seen the men's race, but it should be noted that we only had four individuals toe the line on Saturday morning (for a variety of reasons, but thankfully we should be closer to full strength next weekend), and all four were putting on the red singlet for the first time. That's a pretty nerve-wracking experience, and to do it without the benefit of any senior leadership makes things a bit more challenging! I'm incredibly pleased with how Kristin Ieva, Melanie Walsh, Anika Parnell, and Cherise Mack performed today. There were good decisions early, and strong commitment late in the race. It's rare to have a 100% success rate in this sport, but I believe we had that with the women's team today – all four avoided doing anything wrong, and are able to recognize what our next steps are to do things better!

We look forward to the University of Rochester Invitational next weekend at Genesee Valley Park, where we will have the first 8k and 6k of the year!