OSWEGO, N.Y. – Five Red Dragons finished in the top 10 and five others placed between 12th and 20th as Cortland won the team title at the Oswego Men's Cross Country Invitational.
 
Cortland finished with 29 points, easily outdistancing second-place Oneonta (68) and third-place Oswego (84). A total of seven teams competed.
 
Matthew Mullen (Medford/William Floyd) finished second out of 96 runners with a time of 20 minutes, 3.5 seconds over the 6,000-meter course at the Fallbrook Recreation Center. Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) finished alongside Mullen in third place at 20:04.1. Oneonta's Jonthomas Bierman won the race in 19:35.7.
 
Lenny Diaz (Newburgh/Newburgh Free Academy) placed seventh in 20:33.1, followed by Vincent Smaldone (Red Hook) in eighth (20:36.4) and Daniel Patrick (Manlius/Fayetteville-Manlius) in ninth (20:37.9).
 
Jack Bisbee (Deer Park/Half Hollow Hills West) turned in a 12th-place time of 20:44.8 and Adam Schreiber (Williamson) finished 13th in 20:45.2. Robert Davidson (Setauket/Ward Melville) placed 16th (20:51.4), Paul Tommolino (Stony Brook/Ward Melville) was 17th (20:54.5) and Hunter Rautenstrauch (Buffalo/West Seneca West) placed 20th (21:02.5).

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.