OSWEGO, N.Y. – The Cortland women's cross country team finished first out of 10 schools and Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) claimed the individual title at the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Championships, hosted by SUNY Oswego at the Fallbrook Recreation Center.
 
Cortland won its 17th SUNYAC title overall and first since 2010. The Red Dragons finished with 39 points, edging Oneonta (43) by four points. New Paltz was third with 77 points, followed by Oswego (110), Plattsburgh (138), Fredonia (165), Morrisville (195), Potsdam (207), Buffalo State (246) and Canton (295).
 
Innocent became Cortland's first SUNYAC women's cross country individual champ since Emily Cotey in 2012 and the 17th overall. She covered the 6,000-meter course in 23 minutes, 43.3 seconds and defeated runner-up Sabrinna Mena of Oneonta by more than 21 seconds.
 
Innocent was one of five Red Dragons to earn All-SUNYAC honors with top-15 finishes in a field of 87 runners. Deirdre Sullivan (Tappan/Tappan Zee) placed fourth in 24:19.6 to earn a spot with Innocent on the first team, Devin Reilly (Irvington) was ninth in 24:42.5 to earn second team recognition, and Alexa Wolcott (Wyoming/Pavilion) was 12th in 24:57.7 and Anne Barney (Oakland, NJ/Indian Hills) placed 13th in 25:09.4 to each finish on the third team. The top five finishers are named to the All-SUNYAC first team, spots 6-10 are second team and 11-15 are third team.
 
Innocent and Sullivan earned spots 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.
 
Seven other Cortland runners placed in the top half of the field. Bri Ostheller (Penfield) finished 20th (25:49.8), Brooke Keitel (Manorville/Eastport-South Manor) was 21st (25:52.2) and Phoebe Peer (Saranac Lake) was 22nd (25:52.8). Kristin Ieva (North Babylon) crossed the finish line 24th (26:11.2), followed by Emma Trefzger (Horseheads) in 26th (26:19.5) and Julia Benton (Addison) in 29th (26:25.2). Mia Hannan (Lynbrook/Sacred Heart Academy) finished 42nd (27:10.3).
 
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.