ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Cortland women's cross country team, ranked ninth in the Niagara Region, placed fourth of 13 schools at the Roberts Wesleyan Harry F. Anderson Invitational. 
 
Cortland finished with 99 points. Geneseo won the title with 51 points, followed by Roberts Wesleyan (66), Nazareth (83), Cortland and D'Youville (113) in the top five. 
 
Cortland was led by Khalifah Tracey (Greenville) in 15th place in 19 minutes, 16.4 seconds, Alexa Wolcott (Wyoming/Pavilion) in 16th place (19:17.4) and Adrienne Martin (Cincinnatus/Norwich) in 19th place (19:21.1) over 5,000 meters. A total of 148 runners competed. Rachel Horner-Richardson of Roberts Wesleyan won the race in 18:30.3. 
 
In total, Cortland had 12 runners finish in the top 65. Five Red Dragons placed between 30th and 38th place – Anne Barney (Oakland, NJ/Indian Hills) in 30th and Sydney Smith (Greenville) in 31st, both officially in 19:48.7, along with Devin Reilly (Irvington) in 35th (19:52.9), Pipher Reid (Greene/Chenango Forks) in 37th (19:55.4) and Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) in 38th (19:55.9). 
 
Cherise Mack (Johnson City) turned in a 44th-place time of 20:13.7. Anika Parnell (Corinth) finished 54th (20:40.4), Emma Trefzger (Horseheads) was 61st (20:56.3) and Deirdre Sullivan (Tappan/Tappan Zee) placed 65th (21:09.9).

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

I don't get to say this as often as I like, but today was a really fun day! It's always great to have a lot of highly successful performances, as well as to have a number of parents and alumni show up in support.
 
We had a pretty rare meet today in that besides a couple of spots where folks weren't able to finish, we had very strong efforts from nearly everybody on both teams today. When nearly 50 athletes were racing, to have over 90% perform well is a pretty special day!
 
Some highlights from today would be not only Hunter Brignall for the men who set a new Cortland record for the course, but also Cameron Szabo who moved into the top-10 all-time list with his effort. It's nice when we can be on the same course from year to year to have some accurate records. Other notable performances on the men's side include Adam Schreiber with a personal best of close to 75 seconds over the distance, and having three firstyear athletes (Liam Boyd, Hector Ramos, and Kevin Moser) all run the first 8k of their career under 30 minutes!
 
For the women, Khalifah Tracey, Alexa Wolcott, and Adrienne Martin all recorded their name in our all-time top-10 list; while firstyears Anne Barney and Melissa Innocent are now in the top-10 for firstyear athletes. Those alone make today quite exciting! Having 8 women under 20 minutes for the 5k is a great step forward for the program, and having a spread of under 40 seconds for our top 8 is also a wonderful measure. The women's team is doing an excellent job of working with each other out on the course – something they are doing well with in practice – and it is paying dividends for us.
 
Some of the squad will make the trip down to Lehigh University this upcoming weekend to compete at the prestigious Paul Short Invitational, which is a great opportunity to test ourselves against strong competition.