DYLAN FORMAN
Staff Writer
On Saturday, the men and women’s cross country teams traveled to Letchworth State Park to compete in the Geneseo Invitational hosted by SUNY Geneseo.
The men were led by senior Zakk Hess who ran his fastest time as a Blue Devil of 25:18. Hess finished eighth in the race among arguably the toughest field yet this season. Junior Kyle Collins also ran his fastest collegiate time for the 8K distance with 25:29, earning himself a 13th place finish and second for Fredonia. Senior captain Chris Shartrand continued the trend by running a personal best as well, in 25:32 and 18th overall.
Rounding out the scoring five for the men’s team was senior Jed Kovalovsky in 26:14, and sophomore Cody Martini in 26:30. The displacers were sophomore Bobby Cooper with a time of 26:52, followed by freshman Merlin Joseph in 27:07.
As a team, the outstanding performances on behalf of the men earned the Blue Devils a fourth place finish among 21 teams with a score of 132 points. The overall winner was host-school Geneseo with just 41 points.
The women’s team also ran on Saturday and turned in their strongest performance as well. In finishing 15th, the top seven female runners each ran their fastest times of the season. The overall winning team was, again, host-school Geneseo.
The top Blue Devil in the women’s race was junior Lauren Kotas with a season-best of 23:20. Following closely was sophomore Bonnie Binggeli in 23:35. The other scoring runners consisted of sophomore Kara Hall in 24:17, sophomore Alyssa Stroud in 24:34, and freshman Madison Courtney in 24:41.
The displacers, by virtue of finishing sixth and seventh for the women, was senior Emily Palmeri who ran the 6K course in 24:45 and sophomore Kelly Vincent in 25:00.
Both cross country teams will compete next in Oberlin, Ohio for the Inter-Regional Rumble on Oct. 18th beginning at 10am.