LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. – Led by four top-20 finishes, the Cortland women's cross country team placed second out of 20 schools at the Rowan University Border Battle.

Cortland, ranked fourth in the Niagara Region, finished with a team score of 97 points. Swarthmore won with 77 points, and Cortland was followed in the top six by Christopher Newport (113), Mount Union (116), Rowan (146) and Salisbury (147). Of the 20 teams competing, 12 are regionally ranked, including eight of the top nine finishers.

Cortland was in fourth place as a team at the one-mile mark and improved to second place about two thirds of the way through the race.

Melissa Innocent (Elmont/Valley Stream North) finished third out of 175 runners with a time of 22 minutes, 40.2 seconds over a 6,000-meter course that featured about a mile of muddy conditions. Phoebe Peer (Saranac Lake) finished sixth in 22:52.7 and Alexa Doe (Adams/South Jefferson) was seventh in 22:58.8.

Innocent and Peer were tied for first at the one-mile mark. Innocent was still leading with less than 2,000 meters left before placing third, while Peer was fifth with less than 2,000 meters remaining before ending up in sixth. Doe advanced from 24th at one mile to eighth and then seventh. Misericordia's Madison Hedglin won the race in 22:28.6 and Swarthmore's Charlotte Martin was second in 22:31.4.

Briana Ostheller (Penfield) finished 19th in 23:39.3, improving from 31st at the one-mile mark. Anne Barney (Oakland, NJ/Indian Hills) placed 64th (24:56.0), Alessandra Finnerty-Vidal (Dobbs Ferry/Ardsley) was 67th (25:00.5) and Makayla Renzo (Wappingers Falls/Roy C. Ketcham) was 72nd (25:14.8) to round out Cortland's top seven. Jade Hornick (Valley Stream/Valley Stream South) placed 73rd (25:15.0), Allie Snell (Potsdam/Parishville-Hopkinton) was 83rd (25:34.1) and Jewel Jones (Long Beach) finished 89th (25:40.5).

In the open 6,000-meter race, four Red Dragons finished in the top 10 out of 93 runners. Abi Tessier (Delhi/Delaware Academy) was the runner-up in the race in 25:59.3, followed by MaryJane Politi (Newburgh/Newburgh Free Academy) in fourth (26:11.2), Emily Neuman (Auburn) in fifth (26:32.2) and Cassidy Wendt (Seaford) in ninth (27:00.3).

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!