ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Cortland finished in fourth place out of 23 schools at the NCAA Division III Niagara Region (Region 3) Women's Cross Country Championships, hosted by RIT at Genesee Valley Park.
 
Cortland finished with 171 points, two ahead of Hamilton and five behind third-place Ithaca. NYU won the team title with 52 points and Geneseo was second with 64. NYU earned an automatic berth to the NCAA Division III Championships by winning the regional. Other regional team finishers are eligible for at-large selections, but the Red Dragons are probably not in good enough position to earn a national team berth.
 
Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) is guaranteed a trip to nationals for the second straight year after finishing fourth out of 163 runners. The top seven runners not on teams chosen for nationals qualify for the championship individually. The NCAA championship race will be held on Saturday, Nov. 22, in Spartanburg, S.C.
 
Innocent covered the 6,000-meter course in 21 minutes, 56.6 seconds. Geneseo's Ann Brennan won the race in 21:38.2. Innocent was ninth after 3,000 meters and moved up to sixth place at the 4K mark. She remained in sixth with 1,000 meters left before making a late move up to fourth place. Innocent finished 15th at last year's regional championship.
 
Innocent and Alexa Wolcott (Wyoming/Pavilion) earned all-region honors by virtue of top-35 finishes. Wolcott crossed the finish line in 31st place in 22:55.4, improving from an 85th-place showing last year. Wolcott was 67th after 1,000 meters but moved up to 38th place by the 3K mark. She was 28th with 1,000 meters remaining before finishing 31st.
 
Cortland's next two finishers narrowly missed all-region recognition. Jewel Jones (Long Beach) finished 37th (23:05.9) and Phoebe Peer (Saranac Lake) was 41st (23:14.7). Rounding out the Red Dragon contingent were Bri Ostheller (Penfield) in 62nd (23:59.5), Gwenivere Connelly (Port Jefferson/Earl L. Vandermeulen) in 70th (24:14.0) and Jade Hornick (Valley Stream/Valley Stream South) in 85th (24:38.7).

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

Quite a day for us – we're very proud of the efforts both squads brought today! Even though this meet is our smallest roster of the year (with a limit of seven per race), we have to feel good about everybody that raced today. The Red Dragons were out smart, raced tough, moved up, and fought through the end! We're also thankful to have had a ton of support from family, friends, teammates, and alumni that showed up today!

We were fortunate to have split mats at every 1000 meters during the race; the men's team decreased their score at each checkpoint. That's pretty remarkable to do! That's good tangible evidence of the squad fighting for every point and fighting to take every second off of their times. While not every guy is feeling as positive as I am about the race, that's another thing that the coaches view as a positive – it means we aren't satisfied with just 'going out there' and are looking to continue to improve! In particular, I'd like to point out firstyear Landon Fracasse, who is now #4 on our all-time list for this course, and senior Brandon Mulholland, who put everything he had into the race today – I'm confident in calling it the best race of his career!
 
It was a very similar story with the women's team – they pushed so hard that they were in 3rd as a team at the 5k mark, and just got nosed out for that spot over the final 1000 meters. That's OK – I couldn't be prouder of their effort! From the 1k to the finish, our scoring 5 moved past 120 places – most of it from our #2 - #5, as Melissa was up front the whole time. Obviously Melissa's race was great – and seemed very smooth from outside the lines – besides being a guaranteed qualifier for next Saturday's NCAA Championships, she set our record for that course; senior Alexa Wolcott moved into our all-time top-ten list while earning all-regional honors, and firstyear Gwen Connelly earned a spot in the rookie all-time top ten! The 4th place team finish is especially nice in that it not only provides a concrete benchmark of the quality strides the program has made, but also because it helps contribute valuable points for the National Directors' Cup.
 
As this was our last full team competition, I'd like to make special acknowledgment of our seniors – not just Brandon and Alexa, but also Anthony Cawley and 'Coach' Josh Osae, for the time, effort, dedication, and leadership they have provided. All four will definitely be missed next fall!
 
Most of the squad is making the move to indoor track and field (there's a meet coming up in just 3 weeks!), but of course we're excited for Melissa's return to the NCAA Cross Country Championships this upcoming Saturday!