ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Cortland women's cross country team placed five runners in the top 40 and five more in the top half of the field at the Roberts Wesleyan Harry F. Anderson Invitational. The Red Dragons finished fourth out of 14 schools in the final team standings.
 
Geneseo won the team title with 15 points. The Division II host Redhawks were second with 75, followed by Division I St. Bonaventure with 83, Cortland with 106 and SUNY-ESF with 133 in the top five.
 
Khalifah Tracey (Greenville) and Vanessa Burkard (Newfane) finished at basically the same time – Tracey was officially 23rd out of 168 runners in 19 minutes, 31.5 seconds over 5,000 meters and Burkard was 24th in 19:31.6. Geneseo's Kathleen McCarey won the race in 17:30.9.
 
Kristin Ieva (North Babylon) turned in a 35th-place time of 19:51.0, followed by Rachel Castello (Cheektowaga/West Seneca East) in 36th (19:52.2) and Marlee Angus (Penfield) in 40th (20:02.2).
 
Sydney Smith (Greenville) and Adrienne Martin (Cincinnatus/Norwich) rounded out Cortland's top seven in 69th (20:43.5) and 71st (20:44.3) place, respectively. Devin Reilly (Irvington) finished 72nd (20:44.8), Melanie Walsh (Ronkonkoma/Connetquot) was 75th (20:50.2) and Savannah Adami (Guilderland) placed 81st (20:59.9).
 
Cortland will compete at Division I Lehigh University's Paul Short Run on Friday.

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

This was an exciting day for both programs! We went in with some very specific pacing and racing goals for the men's team today, and we did a good job of executing our plan overall. We held back Hunter Brignall, Harry Tomasi, and Cameron Szabo to pace teammates today, so their individual performances weren't were they probably should be, but that's fine for the first day of fall. Their sacrifice did a lot to help pull up our 'normal' 5th – 12th runners today. When we have that level of leadership and sacrifice for the program, things are moving in a very good direction! Their sacrifice, and the work put in by the next group, sets us up nicely to be in the position to compete well this upcoming Friday at the Paul Short Invitational hosted by Lehigh University. I'd like to point out that Ryan Cory ran away with the race and the top time ever for Cortland on that course; both Hunter and Harry moved into our top-10 all-time on the course.
 
For what was the second race of the year for most, the women's team had a tremendous day. We had an emphasis on some specific race strategies and on improving on our ability to work together in packs in the race. I'm having a hard time thinking of a more successful team outing then we had today for the women's program! Having a 31-second spread between 1 – 5 is exciting, and our next pack of runners (Sydney Smith, Adrienne Martin, Devin Reilly, and Melanie Walsh) did an amazing job of working together through the race. Even though this was still more of a 'workout' than an all-out race, I'd like to point out that both Khalifah Tracey and Vanessa Burkard posted top-10 all-time performances on the course, while Kristin Ieva posted the third-fastest time ever by a firstyear runner for the Lady Red Dragons.