OSWEGO, N.Y. – Despite resting six of its top runners, the nationally top-ranked Cortland men’s cross country team finished in third place out of 14 schools at the Oswego Laker Invitational. Houghton College won the race with 43 points, edging RIT by three points. Cortland finished with 82 points, with Ithaca (115) and Clarkson (146) rounding out the top five.
Junior Travis DeRusso (East Berne/Berne-Knox-Westerlo) finished second out of 163 runners on the 6,000-meter course in 19:45, one second ahead of junior Eric Stermer’s (Chenango Forks) third-place time of 19:46. Houghton’s Dan Ballard won the race in 19:21.
Also scoring for the Red Dragons were freshman Brendan Ward (Smithtown/Smithtown East) in 23rd place (20:48), sophomore Matt Temme (Ridge/Longwood) in 27th place (20:57) and freshman Bill Hughes (Syracuse/Bishop Ludden) in 31st place (21:02).
Four other Cortland runners finished in the top 50. Freshman Ian Clerkin (Cornwall) crossed the line in 40th place (21:15), senior Steve McCaffrey (Pawling) was 42nd (21:17), senior Niko Viglione (Purdys/Somers) placed 44th (21:19) and freshman Greg Burns (Watertown/South Jefferson) was 50th (21:34).