OSWEGO, N.Y. – The Cortland men's cross country team finished first out of 10 schools at the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Championships, hosted by SUNY Oswego at the Fallbrook Recreation Center.
 
Cortland won its 15th SUNYAC title overall and first since 2013. The Red Dragons finished with 60 points, followed by Oneonta with 71, Fredonia with 81 and New Paltz with 92. Rounding out the field were Plattsburgh (116), Buffalo State (150), Oswego (157), Morrisville (158), Canton (295) and Potsdam (304).
 
Four Red Dragons earned All-SUNYAC honors with top-15 finishes in a field of 96 runners. Adam Schreiber (Williamson) earned first team honors with a fourth-place finish in 26 minutes, 58.9 seconds over 8,000 meters. Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) earned a spot on the all-league second team with a 10th-place time of 27:25.1, while Lenny Diaz (Newburgh/Newburgh Free Academy) and Matthew Mullen (Medford/William Floyd) were both recognized on the third team, with Diaz placing 13th in 27:34.8 and Mullen finishing 15th in 27:41.8. Oneonta's Jonthomas Bierman won the race in 26:46.1. The top five finishers are named to the All-SUNYAC first team, spots 6-10 are second team and 11-15 are third team.
 
Schreiber earned 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.
 
Cortland's next three finishers placed in the top 25 overall. Hunter Rautenstrauch (Buffalo/West Seneca West) was 18th in 27:54.5, Vincent Smaldone (Red Hook) ended 23rd in 28:10.9 and Robert Davidson (Setauket/Ward Melville) was 25th in 28:17.0. Other Red Dragons in the top half of the field included Paul Tommolino (Stony Brook/Ward Melville) in 28th (28:21.8), Ronan Pollard (Lindenhurst) in 32nd (28:40.4), Michael Houser (Averill Park/La Salle Institute) in 44th (29:19.9) and Christian Wissa (Somers) in 47th (29:30.0).
 
Cortland will compete at the NCAA Division III Region Three (Niagara Region) Championships Nov. 16 at Fredonia.

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

Well, obviously it's fun to bring the conference titles back home to Cortland – returning with two team titles, the women's individual title, three SUNYAC Cross Country Hall of Fame Inductions, and nine all-conference honors makes for a pretty fun day!
 
We've said all year that our depth was a pretty good strength of the program, and it definitely was key for us today as we had some folks step up for both teams to re-arrange our scorers. That takes a pretty good strength of character to attempt to do that – let alone to succeed in it – so we're quite thrilled that it happened today when it counted a bit more!
 
We're really proud of the maturity our teams raced with, in that we got out relatively smart and really worked the middle and end of the races, especially on a course that was quite a bit long. The women's team was down by 12 points at the 2k mark, and moved into the lead with a strong surge in the middle. The men were down by 20 points at the 2k, 2 points at the halfway mark, and then moved into a 12 point lead over the third 'lap' of the '2k' course, hanging on to win by 11.

Because we had so many strong performances, I'd like to highlight Anne Barney as an unsung hero for the women's team – she executed the race plan pretty flawlessly, and had to fight for more than half the race pretty isolated. That can be an easy spot to slow down in, and she certainly didn't!
 
For the men's team, Hunter Rautenstrauch – with a lot of help from classmate Vincent Smaldone – came through big to be our 5th scorer today. Heading into the race finishing between 20th and 25th was somewhere between our hope and expectation for Hunter and Vincent (who finished 23rd); Hunter's charge over the final half of the race where he moved up 14 points was pretty key for us!
 
I'd also like to thank the teammates, alumni, family, and friends that made the trip in person and/or followed along online. I've already heard from folks as far away as Minnesota who have checked in on the results! It's great to have that level of support from all of those people today!
 
A lot of the squad now transitions to the track and field program; while our top cross country folks are preparing for the NCAA regional championships in two weeks.