{"id":3818,"date":"2025-10-16T10:27:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T10:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/3818\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T10:27:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T10:27:15","slug":"mayhem-in-bethlehem-cross-country-competes-at-the-paul-short-invitational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/3818\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayhem in Bethlehem: Cross Country Competes at the Paul Short Invitational"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Both the men and women of Cornell cross country competed against 157 other teams at the Paul Short Invitational in Bethlehem, PA on Friday. Facing much more stringent competition than its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cornellsun.com\/article\/2025\/09\/men-s-women-s-cross-country-dazzle-in-season-opener\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">previous<\/a> meet against SUNY Cortland back on Sept. 9, the Red fought valiantly against its numerous opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All of the men\u2019s scorers were within the top 200, good for a final score of 352 points and 12th overall. They achieved this score despite the fact that illness plagued some of the runners in the week prior to the race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had a couple guys drop out and we had some illness,\u201d said head coach Mike Henderson. \u201cSome [sick] guys tried to give it a go, and so we didn\u2019t have the depth that I think really shows who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Senior Tyler Canaday, junior Aryan Abbaraju and freshman Griffin Mandirola were the top scorers, finishing 20th, 24th and 33rd, respectively in a race of more than 1,300 contestants. Junior Matthew O\u2019Brien and sophomore Colin Martens rounded out the scoring, scoring 99 and 176 points, while placing 103rd and 188th, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe top three really delivered,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cThose top three showed, \u2018Hey, if we\u2019re really firing on all cylinders, we could be a strong team.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The women also performed well. Deciding to race tactically, they started comparatively slow and eventually worked their way up to 15th overall with 559 points. Senior Mairead Clas, sophomore Hannah Kersten and junior Maisie McManus were the top performers for the Red, placing 52nd, 77th and 122nd. Rounding out the scorers, freshman Evelyn Prodoehl placed 134th and sophomore Bronwyn Parks scored 174 points, placing 180th.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[The women] did a good job of digging themselves out of a hole,\u201d Henderson said.\u201cThey were a little more controlled early and they found each other. They did a really good job of running together as a pack.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When looking at the placements of the men and women in context, a trend emerges: both emerged victorious over Ivy League rivals Dartmouth College and Brown University. The men dispatched the University of Pennsylvania, while the women failed to do so. Both were convincingly beaten by Harvard University and narrowly defeated by Yale University.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The losses to Yale may have dire implications for the Red. The top two teams from nine regions across the country go to the NCAA Championship, and a further 14 are selected based on which teams they\u2019ve beaten over the course of the season. Given that the Red and the Bulldogs are of a similar calibre, losing to them is a tough blow to bear.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not a cause for concern, but it\u2019s certainly a cause for motivation. \u2026 I don\u2019t like losing to anybody in the league, and especially [in] close battles,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cYale is a strong program and they know they\u2019ve got big goals for themselves, too. So we know that we\u2019re never going to be able to forget about them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Luckily for the Red, it will have plenty of opportunities to avenge narrow defeats like the one it suffered against the Bulldogs. The next opportunity will come on Oct. 17, as the Red heads down to Princeton, NJ, to compete in the Princeton Fall Classic.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Eric Joy is a Sun Contributor and can be reached at ewj36@cornell.edu.<\/p>\n<p>Read More<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Both the men and women of Cornell cross country competed against 157 other teams at the Paul Short&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-3818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}