ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Cortland women's cross country team finished in 16th place out of 25 schools at the University of Rochester Yellowjacket Invitational.
Cortland posted a team score of 432 points, one better than William Smith and three behind Oneonta. NYU was the team champion with 46 points.
Vanessa Burkard (Newfane) led Cortland's runners with a 70th-place finish out of 262 runners. She covered the 6,000-meter course at Genesee Valley Park in 24 minutes, 54.0 seconds. NYU's Grace Richardson was the race winner in 22:39.4.
Kristin Ieva (North Babylon) finished 83rd in 25:12.3 and
Khalifah Tracey (Greenville) was 100th in 25:32.2.
Marlee Angus (Penfield) crossed the finish line in 116th place (25:48.2),
Sydney Smith (Greenville) placed 143rd (26:30.4) and
Adrienne Martin (Cincinnatus/Norwich) was 144th (26:30.6). Rounding out the Red Dragons' top eight were
Melanie Walsh (Ronkonkoma/Connetquot) in 164th (26:52.6) and
Devin Reilly (Irvington) in 171st (26:57.9.
Coach's Corner - Comments from Cortland Head Coach Steve Patrick:
The women's program started off our day quite well! We had a nice effort overall with people working together in pace groups. We weren't quite as disciplined as I might have preferred, but this grumpy coach needs to remember that for most of these women it was the first race of the season. We'd normally prefer to start with something shorter and less intense, but we have to deal with the circumstances we are in. I especially thought the efforts by
Sydney Smith and
Adrienne Martin were quite pleasing today, and having a rookie (
Kristin Ieva) do so well today is of course a wonderful thing. For our first effort of the year this was pretty reasonable.
We didn't have as good of a result from our men overall, but the three men up near the front (
Hunter Brignall,
Harry Tomasi, and
Cameron Szabo) were a pleasure to watch today. They certainly took care to work together; their big emphasis for the day was to be tightly connected through 6000 meters, and they achieved that quite admirably.
Thankfully we can learn from the experience for both squads, and continue some progress through the season. We will be back in the Rochester area next weekend to compete at Roberts Wesleyan College.
