ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Ryan Cory (Beacon) finished first out of 174 runners to help the Cortland men's cross country team place second in a 15-school field at the Roberts Wesleyan Harry F. Anderson Invitational.
 
Cortland finished with a score of 97 points. Geneseo was the team champion with 24 points, followed by Cortland, the Division II host Redhawks (110), Division I St. Bonaventure (111) and Fredonia (125) in the top five.
 
Cory covered the 8,000-meter Matt St. James XC Trails in 24 minutes, 50.9 seconds. He defeated the runner-up, Geneseo's Alex Hillyard, by more than 20 seconds.
 
Hunter Brignall (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) and Harry Tomasi (Port Jervis) were the Red Dragons' next two finishers side-by-side in 19th (26:14.0) and 20th (26:14.6) place, respectively. RJ Davis (Cicero/Cicero-North Syracuse) finished 33rd (26:49.6), Matthew Mullen (Mastic/William Floyd) was 46th (27:11.5), Clayton Santiago (Bethpage) placed 48th (27:17.5) and Ben Zinger (Liverpool) was 56th (27:33.9).
 
Four other Cortland runners finished in the top half of the field. Cameron Szabo (Owego/Owego Free Academy) crossed the line 63rd (27:43.6) and Tom Adamescu (Canandaigua/Canandaigua Academy) was 69th (28:11.8). Daniel Patrick (Manlius/Fayetteville-Manlius) placed 77th (28:23.1) and Robert Davidson (Setauket/Ward Melville) was 84th (28:31.1).
 
Cortland heads to Division I Lehigh University for the 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.