LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. – Hunter Brignall (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) earned the individual title in a field of 278 runners at the Rowan University Border Battle. He posted a winning time of 24 minutes, 44.8 seconds over 8,000 meters in the championship race.
 
Brignall improved by 21 places and more than 40 seconds from his performance at Rowan last fall. He defeated the runner-up, Tim Patterson of St. Vincent, by almost 12 seconds.
 
Cortland, ranked sixth in the Niagara region, finished in 14th place out of 31 schools in the final team standings. The Red Dragons finished with 350 points. Rowan won the title with 87, followed by DeSales (135) and Moravian (144).
 
Cortland's second through seventh finishers all placed in the top half of the race. Matthew Mullen (Medford/William Floyd) finished in 76th place (26:20.1), Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) was 91st (26:28.5) and Adam Beach (Red Hook) hit the finish line 96th (26:30.0). RJ Davis (Cicero/Cicero-North Syracuse) finished in 105th place (26:35.0), Adam Schreiber (Williamson) ended in 132nd place (26:56.9) and Nate Wilsoncroft (Big Flats/Horseheads) placed 126th (26:59.7).
 
Robert Davidson (Setauket/Ward Melville) was Cortland's top finisher in the open race with a 23rd-place finish out of 152 runners in 27:09.4.
 
Cortland's next competition will be the Cornell University John Reif Memorial Run on Friday at 4:30 p.m.

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

This was a pretty great day! A big marker is that 36 members of the team ran a lifetime best today. We had some specific goals about how we wanted to approach this race and for the most part we accomplished them. Even though we were a bit limited by some injuries and illnesses, this was a very positive step forward.

Besides the win by Hunter Brignall (which set a new Cortland record for that course), firstyears Kevin Moser, Jack Bisbee, and Liam Boyd all joined the 'rookie' top ten times list. On the women's side, Adrienne Martin, Melissa Innocent, Khalifah Tracey, Emma Trefzger, Sydney Smith, Devin Reilly, and Cherise Mack all put new marks into the top 10 list. If you're keeping score at home, our entire top seven today are now in our all-time top 10!

Melissa now holds the Cortland rookie record for this course; Classmate Anne Barney is also now a member of the top ten list for firstyears.

For the second week in a row Deirdre Sullivan had a great race, setting a PR by nearly 2 minutes, and earning the runner-up spot in the open race. Kristin Ieva, working back from injury, also earned a top 10 spot in the women's open race.

For the guys, Rob Davidson ran a very tough final three miles, as did Josh Koeppe, to end up in the top 30 of the open race.

The team will be training on their own for a couple of days while the college is on break, but return for a quality session this Tuesday. About a third of the roster will race next Friday at Cornell, while the rest will be preparing for the upcoming championships season.