ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Cortland men's cross country team placed seventh out of 17 teams at the Harry F. Anderson Invitational, hosted by Roberts Wesleyan University.
 
Cortland finished with 223 points, just two points behind sixth-place Houghton and 23 better than eighth-place Fredonia. Geneseo was the team champion with 28 points.
 
Cortland's top eight runners all finished in the top half of the 251-runner field. Brandon Mulholland (Syracuse/Westhill) was the top Red Dragon in 50th place in 26 minutes, 18.5 seconds over 8,000 meters. Ryan Hagan of Geneseo won in 24:36.5.
 
Carter Naginey (Groton) placed 56th in 26:37.5, Vincent Smaldone (Red Hook) was 78th in 27:16.2 and Chris Jones (Riverhead) finished 87th in 27:35.8. Cortland's fifth through eighth place finishers were Jordan Wingert (Verona/Vernon-Verona-Sherrill) (108th, 27:56.2), Declan Butler (Yonkers/Archbishop Stepinac) (109th, 27:57.9), Jack Hallahan (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa) (112th, 28:00.7) and Christian Wissa (Somers) (116th, 28:05.7).
 
Cortland returns to action on Friday at the Lehigh University Paul Short Run.

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

It was great to get back on the course today; the team came through with some strong efforts!
 
Both squads struggled a bit finding how to run pace through the first mile. While often this is an issue of getting out too fast, today we were out pretty much right where we wanted to be at 400 meters, but lost a bit of urgency to be where we needed to be at the mile. This was our first 'large' invitational of the year, so that definitely made it a good learning opportunity for us. We're quite pleased with how strong the responses were once the squads saw that they were a bit behind at the mile, and how well they maintained those efforts through the end of the race. That type of effort is really pleasing to see, and has a good potential payoff for us come November.
 
We had a very nice youth movement for both teams as Chris Jones, Declan Butler, and Jack Hallahan all entered our all-time list on this course for firstyear men, while Gwen Connelly entered the firstyear women's top 10 list. Melissa Innocent and Alexa Wolcott both earned spots on the women's all-time top 10 list for this course, which is pretty exciting!
 
It's a short week as we head down to the prestigious Paul Short Invitational hosted by Lehigh University, with action taking place all day on Friday, October 3rd.