CLINTON, N.Y. – Cortland was the runner-up out of seven schools at the Hamilton College Women's Cross Country Invitational. 
 
Cortland finished with 93 points, four ahead of third-place Cobleskill and 15 better than fourth-place Clarkson. Hamilton won the event with 17 points. 
 
Deirdre Sullivan (Tappan/Tappan Zee) led Cortland with a 21st-place finish out of 70 runners in 21 minutes, 16.9 seconds over a 5,000-meter course. Hamilton's Taylor Harris was the winner in 19:09.5. 
 
Cortland's next two runners placed in the top 30. Kristin Ieva (North Babylon) finished 27th in 22:07.0 and Aliesha Howard (Marathon) was 29th in 22:22.0. 
 
The Red Dragons also had a grouping of eight runners finish consecutively between 32nd and 39th place. Andie Rice (Louisville, KY/Kentucky Country Day) led that octet in 22:47.2, followed by Eileen Granados (Mineola) (22:58.7), Liv Balfe (Oriskany) (23:01.1), Sarah Kiefer (Cold Spring Harbor) (23:06.4), Jade Hornick (Valley Stream/Valley Stream South) (23:10.8), Mia Hannan (Lynbrook/Sacred Heart Academy) (23:12.3), Amelia Konstanty (Lockport/Royalton Hartland) (23:17.1) and Jewel Jones (Long Beach) (23:19.9).

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

This was quite an exciting week for us! While we focused on training for most of the folks who ran at Paul Short (and who we expect to run at Rowan next weekend), we're quite proud of the efforts and competitiveness that the team showed today.
 
The Hamilton course is fun, but challenging under the best of conditions – and while the temperature was pretty nice and the rain light during the races today, the rain that had come through last night created some muddy and slippery conditions, which makes a tougher course like Hamilton's into a grind. The teams responded quite well, as folks stayed focused and committed to racing more than focusing on the fact that it was going to be a bit slow and challenging.
 
In the women's race, highlights would be Deirdre Sullivan leading the team not only in performance but also making sure that things were being done correctly by the team today, Kristin Ieva running a very tough race getting faster each mile (one of the few athletes to do that today), and newcomer Sarah Kiefer running a very strong race! For the men, Gavin Watkins had one of the strongest races of his career, but I'd like to point out how strong the efforts by Kevin Moser, Joshua Osae, Eric DeHart, and Anthony Cawley were as all ran quite well to hit new PRs on a challenging day.
 
We're excited for the opportunity to travel to Rowan for some out-of-region competition this upcoming weekend!