PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – The Cortland men's cross country team repeated as State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) champions at the conference championship meet, hosted by Plattsburgh State at Rugar Woods.
 
Cortland won its 16th SUNYAC title overall with a score of 60 points, matching its team score from last season's championship. Fredonia placed second with 67 points, followed by New Paltz with 81 and Buffalo State with 87. Rounding out the 12-team field were Delhi (108), Morrisville (163), Oneonta (170), Plattsburgh (212), Oswego (235), Cobleskill (289), Canton (327) and Potsdam (354).
 
Three Red Dragons earned All-SUNYAC honors with top-15 finishes in the field of 105 runners. Senior Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) finished fifth in 26 minutes, 21.7 seconds on the 8,000-meter course. Sophomore Carter Naginey (Groton) placed seventh in 26:41.8 and sophomore Hunter Rautenstrauch (Buffalo/West Seneca West) finished 11th in 26:56.3. Fredonia's Stephen Hallberg won the race in 26:06.8. The top five finishers are named to the All-SUNYAC first team, spots 6-10 are second team and 11-15 are third team.
 
Mulholland earned a place in the SUNYAC Cross Country Hall of Fame, which is awarded to runners who either finish in the top five of the league championship once, the top 10 twice, or the top 15 three times. Mulholland finished in 10th place last year.
 
Mulholland was in fourth place at the 2,650-meter mark and fifth, about two seconds off the lead, at 5,400 meters. He maintained the fifth spot the rest of the race. Naginy moved from 12th at 2,650 meters to seventh at 5,400 meters and remained in that spot. Rautenstrauch was 21st at 2,650 meters, 16th at 5,400 meters and 10th at 7,500 meters before falling one spot down the stretch.
 
Cortland's next nine finishers placed in the top 30 overall. Sophomore Vincent Smaldone (Red Hook) finished 17th (27:17.0), firstyear Landon Fracasse (New Paltz) was 20th (27:34.7), sophomore Christian Wissa (Somers) placed 22nd (27:40.5), sophomore Jordan Wingert (Verona/Vernon-Verona-Sherrill) ended 23rd (27:42.4) and firstyear Daniel Dunn (Oswego) was 24th (27:45.3). Close after that were firstyear Jonathan Slick (Beekmantown) in 26th (27:46.5), sophomore Kyle Friedel (Irondequoit) in 27th (27:48.2), firstyear Jack Hallahan (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) in 28th (27:48.5) and firstyear Declan Butler (Yonkers/Archbishop Stepinac) in 29th (27:51.3).
 
Cortland will compete at the NCAA Division III Niagara Region Championships Nov. 15 at Genesee Valley Park in Rochester.

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

This weekend was a bit of a wild ride!
 
Distance running can be considered as a challenge of toughness. And it's not the type of toughness that stands in the paint and takes a charge (to mix sports metaphors), it's the type of toughness that refuses to quit. It's a very quiet toughness. Resilience might be a much more appropriate word to use!
 
And this weekend tested the team's resilience! We unfortunately had some mechanical issues on our trip up to Plattsburgh on Friday, leading to a couple of hours of sitting on the bus – first on the side of the highway, and later in a bus garage while a mechanic worked on resolving the issue. This of course changed our dinner plans pretty significantly – and the restaurant that was great about working with us was staffed at a much lower level by the time we arrived. This further delayed our arrival to the hotel – but don't worry, we still got there on Friday night! It was still Halloween, and we were treated to Halloween goody bags by parents who had staying in the lobby awaiting our arrival – which was great after the 'tricks' played on us by the trip. By the time we finished checking in and got in our rooms sadly Halloween had ended, and November had begun.
 
As great as the performances were on Saturday – one of the strongest team performances we have had in a long time – the resilience the team showed through the weekend was great! We couldn't be prouder for how the squad handled the challenge and frustration. It would have been easy to make this into a negative situation, to start complaining, to focus on the 'unfairness' and 'how this was going to hurt us.' It would have been human! But it didn't happen. The team stayed in great spirits, with an impromptu off-key karaoke party breaking out while parked in the bus garage. Life isn't always fair, and a lot of things happen out of our control. The team kept perspective, stayed positive, and made the best of it. That's resilience!
 
Great thanks should go out to our senior associate director of athletics, Tom Cranfield, for working the phones on Friday to help us get accommodated, to Stephen Hale of Hale Transportation for offering up his garage and mechanics to a rival company to get us back on the road, and to the Olive Garden in Queensbury, NY, for feeding us heartily after we showed up over two hours late!
 
The efforts on Saturday were outstanding! For the men's race, three all-conference selections to go along with the team title don't tell the whole story. In a smaller race like this, depth doesn't always matter the way it will in a bigger race, but I think it's pretty telling that on a cold and very windy day – where the course was a bit slow from the rain that had come through – we put 12 guys under 28 minutes, with the 13th just a few ticks slower. Our fifth through twelfth guys came in only 17 seconds apart: if you blinked, you probably missed somebody finishing! Using the 28-minute mark as a guide, it's pretty telling that our twelfth man was ahead of the fifth man of every over team in the race, ahead of the fourth man of nine of the other eleven, and would have been the lead runner for four teams in the conference – and was only slightly behind the top runner of a fifth! It's great to see the tangible evidence of how deep we are getting the program!
 
For the women's race, this team ran so well that they made other programs take notice. We pride ourselves on running smart from the gun, but had good control of the race already at around 1.5 miles. From there to the finish, the team turned up the pressure and made strong moves forward. Having four ladies make the all-conference team is of course fantastic – as is Phoebe Peer earning the Elite 20 award for academics, sharing the award with two other ladies, all of whom have a perfect 4.0 GPA! The fact that we could have been missing any of our top five scores and still won comfortably is a great testament to this team!
 
We have two weeks until the NCAA Regional at Genesee Valley Park – we're excited to continue our progress!
 
On a closing note, I followed the results of Cortland Men's Hockey closely on Friday night (yay for the 8-1 win), as it was the team's annual #stopsuicide game in conjunction with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP: follow this link for more information: https://www.cortlandreddragons.com/news/2025/10/8/mens-ice-hockey-charity-game-jersey-auction-oct-31-supporting-suicide-prevention-organization.aspx). We feel honored to help with this effort; four members of our program helped with the 50-50 raffle before and during the game, and I appreciate their time to support a great cause!