* Complete Results

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Competing at the Colgate Invitational on Saturday, the Cornell women placed second, finishing only behind #10 nationally-ranked Syracuse. The Big Red was led by sophomore Katie Kellner, who placed seventh overall in 21:55 for the challenging 6K lay-out.  Syracuse, the defending Northeast Regional champions and current #1-ranked team in the region, won the meet with 23 points, while the Big Red tallied 51 points to Colgate's 62 and the University of Ottawa's 115.

Racing under ideal conditions, with sunny skies and temperatures in the low 60s, the Big Red had three runners in the top 10 and a nice spread of 42 seconds from their first to fifth runners and only 49 seconds from one through seven. Against a very strong Syracuse team, the Big Red proved to be very competitive. In her season-opener, Kellner did a good job in the middle of the race to place seventh with the ninth-best time ever run on the course, which itself presented a series of challenging hills and technical switch-backs in the woods. She was closely followed by freshman Devin McMahon, who ran very strongly for the second week in a row, crossing the line in eighth in 21:59. Sophomore Kelsey Karys  placed 10th in 22:12 in a very good season-opener. She was followed closely by classmate Genna Hartung, who also had a good first race, running 22:24 for 12th. Senior Kristin Sellers had another very good outing to round out the scoring five with a 15th place effort in a time of 22:37. Sophomore Cara Costich was right behind in 16th and 22:39 and senior captain Maura Carroll closed well in the second half of the race to finish out the top seven, running 22:44 for 19th. Juniors Janel Parker (21st, 22:46), Christine Smith (22nd, 22:52) and Shelby Herman (23rd, 22:55) also did very good jobs to finish in the top 30, as did sophomore Neesha Schnepf (24th, 23:00) and freshman Emmy Shearer (26th, 23:05).

Complete results can be found at:
http://www.gocolgateraiders.com/documents/2010/9/18/CU_Invite_Results__Women_.pdf?id=1353

Next up for the Big Red is the Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh on Friday, October 1st.