BETHLEHEM, PA. – The Cortland men's cross country team finished in 40th place out of 45 teams in the White Division of the Lehigh University Paul Short Run.
 
Cortland finished with 1,107 points. NYU won the division's title with 54 points, followed by Amherst with 101.
 
Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) was Cortland's top finisher in 199th place out of 412 runners. He covered the 8,000-meter course in 26 minutes, 32.3 seconds. Colorado College's Will Shuflit won in 24:04.9
 
Carter Naginey (Groton) placed 218th in 26:39.1, Hunter Rautenstrauch (Buffalo/West Seneca West) was 242nd in 26:53.1 and Vincent Smaldone (Red Hook) finished 270th in 27:07.0. Rounding out the Red Dragons' top seven were Jordan Wingert (Verona/Vernon-Verona-Sherrill) in 316th (27:37.9), Chris Jones (Riverhead) in 326th (27:43.9) and Declan Butler (Yonkers/Archbishop Stepinac) in 359th (28:08.0).
 
Earlier in the day in the Open Division, Kyle Friedel (Irondequoit) finished 378th out of 597 runners in 27:34.2 and Jonathan Slick (Beekmantown) was 388th in 27:38.2.
 
Coach's Corner - Comments from Cortland Head Coach Steve Patrick:

Today was an interesting day! There was a lot that happened at one of the largest cross country meets in the nation - and the size of the meet definitely was something new to experience for many of our folks. It isn't every day that you run in a race with 400 or 500 other runners!

For the Lady Red Dragons, Abi Tessier led us off with a strong effort in the 'open' race. She ran controlled early, and really attacked the third uphill mile in a very impressive fashion to lead the squad entered in that race. Kudos also to fellow firstyear Cassidy Wendt who made her collegiate debut with a good effort in what was the largest race she has ever run in!

For the team entered in the 'white' division, Melissa Innocent had a stellar run, entering our all-time top ten list for the course. That's quite an achievement! Alexa Wolcott, Anne Barney, and Bri Ostheller also had very strong efforts on the day. While we didn't quite get the team results we wanted, we feel very good that we just made some small errors here and there; the exciting thing is that the team is able to recognize these on their own and know how to correct things. That's a great place to be in!

The men's 'open' race was led by the efforts of sophomore Kyle Friedel who ran an excellent race; from the perspective of the coaches he was a solid leader out there helping to pull Foster's Jon Slick and Landon Fracasse to strong performances. Senior Anthony Cawley came through with what was probably the best race of his career, which is quite exciting!

In the 'white' division, it was a bit strange. For the most part we didn't race great, but we also didn't race poorly. We were generally OK with how we ran (I guess we are following the Goldilocks principle?) - a lot of places for improvement but not many places where things were bad. As with the ladies team, the gentlemen have a solid understanding of how to move forward! I will note that sophomores Hunter Rautenstrauch and Vinny Smaldone both had very strong performances today, and deserve to be commended for them!

The team will scatter for home as we can meet our training goals for the next few days on their own over October break; we'll be making the trip to southern New Jersey in two weeks for an important 'ranking' meet hosted by Rowan University!