OSWEGO, N.Y. – Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) won the individual title and was one of 10 Red Dragons to finish in the top 20 as the Cortland women's cross country team finished in second place at the Oswego Invitational.
 
Cortland finished with 38 points, just four behind team champion Oneonta (34). Oswego (81), SUNY-ESF (91) and Morrisville (144) rounded out the five-team field.
 
Innocent won the 4,000-meter race at the Fallbrook Recreation Center with a time of 15 minutes, 47.3 seconds, 13 seconds ahead of runner-up Faith Coyle from Oswego. A total of 60 runners competed.
 
Brooke Keitel (Manorville/Eastport-South Manor) placed seventh in 16:24.3 and Alexa Wolcott (Wyoming/Pavilion) was eighth in 16:29.2. Devin Reilly (Irvington) hit the finish line in 10th place (16:38.3).
 
Cortland's next four finishers ended in a tight group between 12th and 15th place. Anne Barney (Oakland, NJ/Indian Hills) was 12th (16:50.8), Phoebe Peer (Saranac Lake) finished 13th (16:52.6), Kristin Ieva (North Babylon) was 14th (16:53.8) and Deirdre Sullivan (Tappan/Tappan Zee) placed 15th (16:55.8). Rounding out the Red Dragons' top-20 contingent were Bri Ostheller (Penfield) in 17th (17:09.8) and Julia Benton (Addison) in 18th (17:11.0).

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

Today was a fun day for the Red Dragons!
 
The rain was still coming down for the men's race, but it wasn't torrential, just steady. The course was in pretty good shape with the exception of one small stretch, but we'll commend Oswego on how the course was prepared and marked, especially given the rain that had come down overnight and early in the morning. It was actually pretty pleasant to have the chance to race under cooler conditions!
 
We had a goal on the men's side of pack running and having some of our groups 'drop back' a bit to help others on the team, and for the most part this worked out beautifully! We had some very tight packs through the 4000 meter mark, and for the most part those that were holding back a bit were able to close pretty dramatically over the final 'lap' of the 2000-meter loop course, and those that had been pushed by their teammates were able to hang on with pretty tough finishes.
 
For the men's side, it was of course nice to earn the team win along the way; I'll especially commend firstyear Hunter Rautenstrauch for a strong effort especially from 4k to 5k, and firstyear Ronan Pollard for having the 5th-fastest last loop on the team!
 
For the most part the women had a similar goal of working on team positioning, and they were also quite successful! They also got to enjoy the rain stopping for their race, although they had much more mud to deal with by virtue of following the men's race. Sophomore Melissa Innocent had a bit of a different plan, and was able to walk away with the individual win, which is of course a great achievement in any cross country race! I think that the leadership of our seniors that ran today – Devin Reilly and Deirdre Sullivan – is really starting to pay off not only in how things went in their groups today, but also in our approach to training and racing.
 
We're looking forward to a good long run tomorrow, and one more short course learning experience next weekend at Fortin Park in Oneonta.