FREDONIA, N.Y. – Cortland sophomore Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) earned all-region honors with a 15th-place finish out of 156 runners at the NCAA Division III Niagara Region (Region 3) Women's Cross Country Championships, hosted by Fredonia State.
 
Cortland finished in 10th place out of 21 schools in the final team standings. The Red Dragons tied with Utica with 254 points, but Utica officially finished ninth and Cortland 10th based on head-to-head matchups between the top five runners on each team, with the Pioneers winning that tiebreaker, 3-2. NYU won the team title with 32 points, followed by Geneseo with 36, Rochester with 107 and Hamilton with 109.
 
NYU earned an automatic berth to the NCAA Division III Championships by winning the regional. Other regional team finishers are eligible for at-large selections, and the top seven runners not on teams chosen for nationals qualify for the championship individually.
 
Innocent has a decent chance to earn one of those seven individual national berths. Five of NYU's runners finished ahead of Innocent, as did five runners from regional runner-up Geneseo. If Geneseo is chosen as an at-large team, Innocent will be guaranteed to be among the top seven individual qualifiers from the region. The 32-team national field and individual qualifiers will be announced Sunday by 3 p.m. on NCAA.com, and the national championship will be held on Saturday, Nov. 23, at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Ind.
 
Innocent earned all-region honors, which go to the top 35 finishers, with her time of 22 minutes, 53.8 seconds over 6,000 meters. Penelope Greene of Geneseo repeated as regional champ with a time of 21:13.3.
 
Deirdre Sullivan (Tappan/Tappan Zee) placed 43rd in 23:40.2 and Devin Reilly (Irvington) was 48th in 23:53.9. Rounding out Cortland's contingent were Anne Barney (Oakland, NJ/Indian Hills) (74th, 24:41.9), Julia Benton (Addison) (76th, 24:45.9), Phoebe Peer (Saranac Lake) (77th, 24:46.9) and Alexa Wolcott (Wyoming/Pavilion) (85th, 25:02.7).

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

Obviously Melissa's performance is quite exciting, and we wait for the official announcement tomorrow regarding the NCAA field with a lot of confidence.
 
This meet was a bit odd for us in that two themes really seemed to develop. The first is our youth. On the women's side, two sophomores and two firstyears were in the race today! I'll highlight the efforts of Julia Benton and Phoebe Peer as our 5th and 6th runners today – both had what might have been their best races of the season, choosing to respond to the pressure of the biggest meet of the year in way that was positive and purposeful! That's an impressive thing to achieve, and bodes well for the future!
 
On the men's side, we ran three firstyears, all of whom also probably produced their best efforts of the season. We've focused a lot on how Hunter Rautenstrauch and Vincent Smaldone can help each other out during the race, and both really seemed to have an improved effort on that today, and it had a great payoff for them individually and as a team. Fellow firstyear Ronan Pollard – like Hunter and Vincent – ran PRs for the 8k distance on a course that isn't the easiest one out there; he competed well in a manner that helps gain valuable experience for the future.
 
This meet also marks the last cross country race in the college career of a number of folks; some of their teammates were finished earlier in the season. We'd like to acknowledge the dedication and effort of Mike Alvarez, Robby Davidson, Eric DeHart, Matthew Mullen, Daniel Patrick, and Adam Schreiber on the men's side, and Aliesha Howard, Kristin Ieva, Devin Reilly, Deirdre Sullivan, and Emma Trefzger for the women's team. While most of this group will be returning for the track and field season, I'll make extra note that Daniel and Devin are both graduating early in December of 2024! Running is challenging, and distance running is a true year-round sport that requires a lot of sacrifice not typically asked of college students, so for these folks to achieve what they have with us is something pretty special! We thank them, and we will miss them!