ONEONTA, N.Y. – The Cortland women'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 83 points, 14 behind runner-up Oneonta and easily ahead of fourth-place Plattsburgh (142). Geneseo won its 12th straight title with a perfect 15 points. A total of 10 schools competed, with eight posting complete team scores.
 
Adrienne Martin (Cincinnatus/Norwich) finished 16th out of 93 runners in 23 minutes, 35.6 seconds over 6,000 meters and Alexa Wolcott (Wyoming/Pavilion) was 17th in 23:37.9. They barely missed earning All-SUNYAC honors, which go to the top 15 runners. Geneseo claimed the top nine spots in the race, led by Penelope Greene's winning time of 21:57.2.
 
Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) turned in a 19th-place time of 23:55.1 and Emma Trefzger (Horseheads) finished 23rd (24:07.2). Khalifah Tracey (Greenville) hit the finish line in 29th place (24:30.3), followed directly by Sydney Smith (Greenville) in 30th (24:33.0) and Devin Reilly (Irvington) in 31st (24:38.5). Three other Red Dragons placed in the top half of the field - Cherise Mack (Johnson City) ended in 33rd place (24:55.7), Pipher Reid (Greene/Chenango Forks) was 34th (25:01.5) and Anika Parnell (Corinth) finished 38th (25:32.8).
 
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!