LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. – The Cortland women's cross country squad, ranked eighth in the Niagara Region, placed eighth out of 31 teams in the championship race at the Rowan University Border Battle.
 
Cortland posted a team score of 267 points, 17 better than Swarthmore and only eight behind both Christopher Newport and Haverford. Carnegie Mellon won the title with 32 points and Johns Hopkins was second with 127 points.
 
Cortland's top six runners placed in the top half of the 296-runner field, including four in the top 75. Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) finished in ninth place in 21 minutes, 49.6 seconds over 6,000 meters. Carnegie Mellon's Chloe Bonson won in 20:57.9. Alexa Wolcott (Wyoming/Pavilion) finished 29th in 22:32.2, Jewel Jones (Long Beach) placed 62nd in 23:00.3 and Phoebe Peer (Saranac Lake) was 73rd in 23:16.5.
 
Gwenivere Connelly (Port Jefferson/Earl L. Vandermeulen) crossed the finish line in 120th place (24:12.6). Bri Ostheller (Penfield) finished 145th (24:31.1) and MaryJane Politi (Newburgh/Newburgh Free Academy) was 159th (24:40.6).
 
In the open race, Cortland finished sixth out of 14 teams with 177 points. Cassidy Wendt (Seaford) was the top Red Dragons in that race in 25:40.7.
 
Cortland's next competition will be at the SUNYAC Championships in Plattsburgh on Nov. 1.

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

Quite a huge step forward for the women's team! We placed much better than last year, and were very close to a number of programs vying for post-season success; we were only 36 points behind perennial metro region qualifier Rowan which is a very tangible measure of improvement for us.

Seeing the top 5 women in the 'championship' race set new lifetime bests in the 5k was pretty fantastic; the top four ladies all entered our top 10 list for this course with Melissa Innocent re-setting our school record for the course; our fifth runner (Gwen Connelly) earned her spot on our firstyear top ten list for the course. Seeing all five of the women in the 'open' race run their fastest 6k as well was also great! We're quite impressed with how the team is working together in races to push each other and improve the overall team's performance. We still have some learning points for nearly everybody and are missing a few folks still with injury and illness, but we're quite pleased with the efforts on the day.

The men's squad had a strong number of personal bests as well, and four guys entered the all-time top ten list for firstyears, which bodes well for the future of the program. What's more impressive is that two of those guys (Danny Dunn and Jack Hallahan) did it from the 'open' race.

We had a number of 8k personal bests today, but we are definitely still wanting more. There weren't many big mistakes made, but a number of small opportunities that would have led to running 10-15 seconds faster; when the entire team can make that adjustment we're looking at a significant drop in points!

A real positive on the day is that despite having some injuries and illness today, the team performed fairly well as a unit especially in comparison to SUNYAC schools in the race.

We're having a final two weeks of training before heading up to Plattsburgh to defend team titles at the SUNYAC championships for both squads!