DYLAN FORMAN
Staff Writer
The men and women’s cross country teams traveled to Rochester on Saturday to compete in the Harry F. Anderson Invitational, hosted by Roberts Wesleyan College.
The men’s race consisted of 25 teams with SUNY Cortland finishing ahead of the field with just 40 points. The Blue Devils finished strong, coming in fourth place with 104 points. Among SUNY schools competing on Saturday, Fredonia was second only to Cortland. Geneseo finished ninth with 254 points and Oswego finished seventh with 222 points.
The men’s team has showed strong diversity early on in the season, having had a different runner lead the team in each of the first three meets. First, Zakk Hess lead the team and then, last week, Jed Kovalovsky followed suit.
This time, the men were lead by junior Kyle Collins who finished in 10th place with a time of 26:08 for the 8K course. Following Collins, in 15th place, was senior captain Chris Shartrand with a time of 26:21. Next for the Blue Devils was senior Jed Kovalovsky, running 26:44 and finishing in 20th place. The finals scorers for the men were sophomores Bobby Cooper in 27th place (27:03) and Cody Martini in 32nd place (27:13).
The displacers consisted of senior Zakk Hess in 33rd place with a time of 27:14, followed closely by freshman Jack Erhard in 48th place and a time of 27:38.
In the women’s race, the Blue Devils were able to finish in eighth place out of 23 teams with a team score of 259 points. The winning team in the race was Cornell with an impressive 32 points. Its top four runners finished in the top ten.
The top runner for Fredonia in the women’s race was sophomore Bonnie Binggeli who completed the 3.1 mile course in just 19:43 (33rd place). Following closely behind, in 37th place, was junior Lauren Kotas with a time of 19:53. Rounding out the scoring five for the women were sophomores Kara Hall (20:01) and Alyssa Stroud (20:41), along with freshman Madison Courtney (20:46).
Closing out the top seven for the women was sophomore Kelly Vincent with a time of 20:50 and Rebekah Champlin in 21:03.
The cross country teams will compete next in the Geneseo Invitational at Letchworth State Park on Saturday, Oct. 4. The men will run at 10 a.m. and the women will run at 11 a.m.