ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Cortland's top five finishers placed in the top 100 of a 340-runner field and the Red Dragons finished in seventh place out of 25 schools at the Roberts Wesleyan Harry F. Anderson Men's Cross Country Invitational.
 
Cortland finished with 256 points, tied for seventh place with Gannon. The Red Dragons earned seventh based on a head-to-head comparison between the top five runners from both teams - Gannon's top two beat Cortland's top two, but the Red Dragons' third, fourth and fifth finishers beat their Gannon counterparts. Division I Cornell won the title with 17 points and three Division II schools placed in the top six.
 
Robert Davidson (Setauket/Ward Melville) led Cortland with a 54th-place time of 26 minutes, 33.1 seconds on an 8,000-meter course. Cornell's Derek Amicon won in 24:10.4. Adam Schreiber (Williamson) finished 70th in 26:46.4 and Matthew Mullen (Medford/William Floyd) placed 73rd in 26:47.8.
 
Cortland's top five also included Paul Tommolino (Stony Brook/Ward Melville) in 86th place (26:59.0) and Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) in 96th place (27:09.3). Lenny Diaz (Newburgh/Newburgh Free Academy) finished 115th (27:25.3), Vincent Smaldone (Red Hook) was 161st (28:15.5) and Hunter Rautenstrauch (Buffalo/West Seneca West) finished 165th (28:18.2).

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

What a fun and successful day we had in Rochester!
 
Of course not everything went perfectly, but it was an awfully good performance by the Red Dragons! One of the things we try to do on these longer trips is review each person's race while we are on the way home. It's nice to be able to chat while looking at the splits we took out on the course to identify what went well, as well as what could be improved.
 
I always 'joke' that when we race well, these conversations are pretty easy. Showing people the data that proves how well they did is always a pleasant experience, and that is mostly what the conversations were like on the drive home! Where they weren't the focus was on how to do better and what to correct – we didn't have many 'bad' decisions today, just a few that could have been done in a better way.
 
I'd like to point out that our 1-5 spread on the men's side was only 36 seconds, and also commend Hunter Rautenstrauch on having one of the fastest closing miles today, as he ran it in 5:19! That was a very impressive finish by him!
 
The women's team is doing an excellent job of working together in groups to the point that it is a real point of pride right now; individually Anne Barney had a tremendous closing mile of 6:18! I'll also commend Melissa Innocent for earning a spot in our all-time top 10 list for the course, and Brooke Keitel for earning a spot in the top 10 list for firstyear student-athletes.
 
Next Saturday is the Paul Short Run at LeHigh University – one of the premiere collegiate cross country races in the nation. We're looking forward to putting it on the line against some of the best programs across the NCAA.