Fredonia senior Hannah Kurbs a couple hundred yards from the finish line.
Fredonia runners were first in their respective races Saturday during the season-opening Fredonia Invitational on the campus course.
Hannah Kurbs (Lockport/Lockport) won the women's race and Ethan Francis (Dunkirk/Dunkirk) the men's race on the same course where the SUNYAC championships will be contested in late October. (See separate story on men's race)
A senior, Kurbs covered 4,000 meters in 16:04.8 – 11 seconds ahead of the Oswego State's Mackenzie Ross – and had an average mile of 6:28.1. It was Kurbs's first first-place finish in a college cross country meet, one spot better than her second-place finish at last year's home meet. She also has a fourth-place finish at the Behrend Invitational last fall.
"Hannah," Head Coach Tom Wilson said, "she's got all of her class load in line, she has a lot of time to train and focus on her goal to sneak into the SUNYAC Hall of Fame. No. 1. To do that, she has to stay healthy, and she has to focus on one race at a time."
The Oswego State women won the team portion with 38 points, followed by Fredonia with 54, Brockport with 59, Cortland with 79, and Gannon with 134.
Fredonia's scoring five, after Kurbs, were freshman Natalie Hansen (Macedon/Penfield) in ninth place, senior Stephanie Wojnowski (Rochester, N.Y./Eastridge) in 12th, senior Emily Maguire (Oakdale/Connetquot) in 15th, and sophomore Sarah Kurbs (Lockport/Lockport) in 20th. The sixth- and seventh-place displacement runners were freshmen Elena Davis (Rochester, N.Y./Irondequoit) and Morgan Ashton (Whitesboro/Whitesboro), respectively.
"As a group," Wilson said, "I was very pleased with them finishing second overall. I was pretty excited on how my freshmen ran today. I was really impressed with the way Natalie ran and how our senior, Stephanie, ran, plus to have a runner win the race (Kurbs), it's always nice to get the one point."
The Blue Devils' next meet is in two weeks, Sept. 15, at the University of Rochester Yellowjacket Invitiaitonal, and their next home meet is Oct. 27, the SUNYAC championships. On that day, the women will run 6,000 meters and the men's 8,000 meters.
