ONEONTA, N.Y. – The Cortland men's cross country team finished in third place at the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Championships, hosted by SUNY Oneonta at Fortin Park.
 
Cortland finished with 88 points, 11 better than fourth-place Oneonta. Geneseo won its ninth straight league title with 21 points, followed by Brockport with 54. Ten teams competed at the meet.
 
Hunter Brignall (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) and Cameron Szabo (Owego/Owego Free Academy) each earned All-SUNYAC honors for the second straight year with top-15 placements.
 
Brignall finished fourth out of 105 runners in 25 minutes, 19.7 seconds over 8,000 meters. He earned a spot on the all-conference first team, which recognizes the championship's top five runners, and he notched a place in the SUNYAC Cross Country Hall of Fame, which is awarded to runners who either finish in the top five of the league championship once, the top 10 twice, or the top 15 three times. Brignall improved his finish from ninth place last year. He was in eighth place after 3,000 meters and moved up to seventh at the 5K mark and fourth with 1,000 meters remaining. Geneseo's William Hall won the race in 25:10.3.
 
Szabo finished 13th in 26:01.2, two spots better than his 15th-place showing in 2022, to repeat as a third-team all-conference selection. The sixth through 10th runners are second team and 11th through 15th are third team. Szabo was 18th after 3,000 meters and 11th after 5,000 meters. He dropped back slightly to 13th place at the 7K mark and held that spot the rest of the way.
 
Cortland's next five runners placed in the top 40. Adam Schreiber (Williamson) was 28th in 26:55.7, Adam Beach (Red Hook) finished 32nd in 27:08.0 and Matthew Mullen (Medford/William Floyd) was 33rd in 27:09.3. Rounding out Cortland's top seven were Robert Davidson (Setauket/Ward Melville) in 36th place (27:18.1) and Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) in 39th place (27:20.2).
 
Four other Red Dragons finished in the top half of the field. Josh Koeppe (Bridgeport/Cicero-North Syracuse) ended in 44th place (27:31.3) and Daniel Patrick (Manlius/Fayetteville-Manlius) was 48th (27:49.6). RJ Davis (Cicero/Cicero-North Syracuse) crossed the finish line 49th (27:51.8) and Gavin Watkins (Endicott/Owego Free Academy) was 50th (27:57.9).
 
Cortland will compete at the NCAA Division III Region Three (Niagara Region) Championships Nov. 11 at Houghton College.

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

Another SUNYAC Championship meet in the books!
 
This was a pretty strange day for us overall as a program. For the most part we ran tough – there wasn't a lot of 'giving up' out there today – but we didn't necessarily run well. You need both to be exceptional.
 
And that's OK – this was a step in the learning process for us, and a pretty good indication of where our depth is as a program. For the men, we didn't quite execute our race plan the way we wanted to, and it left some folks isolated and working by themselves, and that limited what we were able to do on the course today.
 
We saw something similar on the women's side, as our top group got out where they needed to be, which is something we didn't do well in our last two big races. Unfortunately since it was new, we didn't quite get the results we wanted out of it. Our second grouping, who had been getting out in decent position, didn't quite do that today, and we paid for it a bit.
 
It's important to remember that these are good learning experiences, and something we can move forward from!
 
Certainly Hunter earning his spot in the SUNYAC Cross Country Hall of Fame is quite an accomplishment to celebrate; Cam earning all-conference honors is another bright spot for us. I'll also strongly commend Adam Schreiber and Robby Davidson for very strong efforts today on the men's side. For the women's team, Emma Trefzger really attacked the race today, and Cherise Mack had a very strong performance overall.
 
We'd like to thank the folks that made the trip today – parents, teammates, alumni, and friends were out in numbers today, and it is greatly appreciated. We also thank two of our seniors who graduate in December – Gavin Watkins and Nate Wilsoncroft – as their collegiate careers closed out today.
 
We have a good solid two weeks of training remaining for the NCAA Regional Meet, and are looking forward to making a strong statement in November!