ONEONTA, N.Y. – Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) earned her second victory in as many weeks and seven other Cortland runners placed in the top 12 as the Red Dragons competed at the Oneonta Airfield Invitational at Fortin Park.
 
Three schools had enough runners to post team scores. Oneonta won the title with 27 points, followed by Cortland at 31 and Hartwick with 82. Word of Life, Sage and Hudson Valley Community College also had runners in the race.
 
Innocent, coming off a win at the Oswego Invitational last Saturday, finished first in the Oneonta field with a time of 15 minutes, 53.5 seconds over a 4,000-meter course. Oneonta's Gia Engel was second in 16:00.5. A total of 41 runners competed.
 
Devin Reilly (Irvington) finished sixth in 16:21.5, followed by Kristin Ieva in seventh (16:25.4) and Anne Barney (Oakland, NJ/Indian Hills) in eighth (16:27.7). Brooke Keitel (Manorville/Eastport-South Manor) placed ninth (16:32.0), Julia Benton (Addison) crossed the finish line 10th (16:36.7), Deirdre Sullivan (Tappan/Tappan Zee) placed 11th (16:38.1) and Phoebe Peer (Saranac Lake) finished 12th (16:39.5).

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

This was quite a busy weekend for us!
 
The bulk of the team that is healthy made the trip over to Oneonta, where we focused on strong team tactics. It was pretty fun to see how far back we were at the 1k, and how much ground we gained over the remainder of the course. During the excitement of a race it is easy to get caught up and get out too fast; today was really well-executed by both teams to be controlled early to allow us to be successful when it counts.
 
In particular, I'd like to recognize the efforts of Ronan Pollard and Joshua Osae on the men's side and Liv Balfe and Mia Hannan for having a really tough, committed run today!
 
We also sent a small group of men over the Cornell; it was a last-minute opportunity that we felt helped our team's development in a more effective way for a few men than going to Oneonta was going to do. It's great to have the support of our administration to be able to do something like that, especially on relatively short notice. Both Robert Davidson and Brandon Mulholland had pretty exceptional efforts on the day, and the whole squad that made the short trip gained some valuable experience that will pay off for them later in the season.  
 
The day closed with the C-Club Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where we got to see one of our program alumni, legendary Coach Bobby Devins gain a well-deserved inclusion.
 
We're looking forward to having the full-distance races – our first of the season – this upcoming weekend at the University of Rochester Yellowjacket Invitational!