LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. – The Cortland men's cross country team finished in third place out of 19 teams at the Rowan University Border Battle.

The Red Dragons, ranked fifth in the Niagara Region, finished with a team score of 126 points. Mount Union finished first with 70 points, followed by Rowan (83), Cortland, Salisbury (134) and Otterbein (150). The field included 10 regionally ranked teams, including eight of the top nine finishers. 

Cortland was 10th at the one-mile mark and moved up to fourth at the three-mile checkpoint before finishing third.

Hunter Rautenstrauch (Buffalo/West Seneca West) finished 12th out of 177 runners in 27 minutes, 35.5 seconds on the 8,000-meter course, which included about a mile and a half of muddy conditions. Utica's Bennett Melita won the race in 26:39.1. Rautenstrauch was 63rd after one mile but advanced to 25th at three miles and 14th with about 700 meters left on his way to 12th.

Daniel Dunn (Oswego) finished 23rd in 27:54.6, followed by Carter Naginey (Groton) in 29th in 28:10.6, Vincent Smaldone (Red Hook) in 36th in 28:15.2, and Kyle Friedel (Irondequoit) in 38th in 28:17.8. Dunn moved from 86th at one mile to 43rd at three miles, Naginey was 59th at one mile and 33rd at three miles, Smaldone improved from 56th at one mile to 30th at three miles, and Friedel moved from 83rd at one mile to 41st at three miles.

Declan Butler (Yonkers/Archbishop Stepinac) finished in 49th place in 28:35.8. Landon Fracasse (New Paltz) was 63rd in 28:57.6, just ahead of Brady Pieron (Commack) in 64th at 28:58.8. Christian Wissa (Somes) placed 70th in 29:11.7.

In the men's open 8,000-meter race, five Cortland runners placed in the top 16 among 117 runners - Mason Brozowski (Selkirk/Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk) in fifth place (29:12.9), Nicholas Doran (Monroe/Monroe-Woodbury) in seventh (29:30.3), Sawyer Sweet (Utica/Thomas R. Proctor) in 12th (29:46.1), Daniel Patrick (Manlius/Fayetteville-Manlius) in 14th (29:52.7), and Anthony Rizzo (Rochester/Irondequoit) in 16th (29:59.9).

Cortland's next meets are the Cornell John Reif Memorial Run on Oct. 23 and the SUNYAC Championship Oct. 31 in Oneonta.

Coach's Corner - Comments from Cortland Head Coach Chad Dunham:

Boy was it great to be at a meet! With a somewhat abnormally long break for mid XC Season, we were really excited to have this opportunity! A bit unexpectedly, this opportunity also brought quite the muddy day! Here it felt like real Cross Country, times were out the window - many stretches of the course had thick build ups of mud, today was purely about racing!  As is typical for our squad, they face these challenges with a healthy amount of resilience. We had great performances throughout the day in all four races that we competed in. 

Starting off in the Women's Championship, the squad earned 2nd overall as a team, led by Melissa Innocent with a strong 3rd place finish, followed closely by Phoebe Peer and Alexa Doe in 6th and 7th place, respectively, only finishing 6 seconds apart! I'd like to especially shoutout Alexa for having a strong run to make up a lot of ground in the field! Briana Ostheller also had a strong performance finishing 19th in the race, and the rest of our packs here worked really well! First years Alessandra Finnerty-Vidal, Makayla Renzo, and Allie Snell all showed up in a really positive way stepping up to the Championship level race, and it's especially exciting to see the younger folks do so well!
 
In the open race later on, all four women competing ran strong through the mud - what was especially exciting in the race was to see them go 2nd - 4th - 5th and 9th overall, led by Abi Tessier who had a real breakout performance in taking the lead at points! 

In the Men's Championship we again saw the strength of their pack running. Led by Hunter Rautenstrauch powering through the mud to finish 12th overall - Danny Dunn ran hard to be our second scorer overall and the entire rest of our top 5 runners crossed the line within the next 23 seconds! Also in this division I'd like to give a special call-out to Declan Butler, who made up a lot of ground throughout the race to be our 5th runner, and to first-timer-in-Cross-Country Brady Pieron for churning out a really strong performance to be our 8th runner!

Later on in the open divisions, the Men were led by a strong showing out of Mason Brozowski turning out a 5th place finish! This whole division responded well to a fast start, going to run consistent and working to keep close to teammates as they finished! His fellow first-years Nick Doran and Sawyer Sweet were nearby in 7th and 12th, followed close by with the next two returners in 14th and 16th! Shown in both races, the men's team has shown an impressive strength in their packs! 

We will send a small squad over to Cornell this next Friday for a low-key 5k, for most of us it's now our final prep pieces headed into the Conference Championship on Halloween! Thanks for reading!