The College of Staten Island men’s and women’s cross-country squads were back in action this morning at the City College of New York Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, NY.  The CSI men continued their torrid pace with a second place finish in the 8k event among the 17 total full teams in attendance, while the CSI women fared 11th of 18 full teams that ran in the 6k event.

CSI’s Andrew Scharf posted another strong performance, coming in at 29:00.50 today, good for third overall in the field and first among CUNYAC runners.  Just 1:27 later, fellow sophomore Liam McMunn came in to score a 12th place finish.  CSI’s final three scorers were all within seconds of one another.

Kenneth Morella notched a time of 31:03 to come in 23rd in the field, and 19 seconds later, Matthew Day checked in for a 26th place faring.  To finalize the scoring, Samuel Obisanya came in just four seconds behind Day in 28th, giving CSI their 90 points.  Joshua Ribaudo and Michael Jachcinski did not score for CSI but posted good times inside the top 100 racers.

SUNY – Maritime won the race with 51 points, followed by CSI’s 90 and Hunter College’s 102.  A total of seven CUNYAC schools were represented.

On the women’s side of the ledger, CSI was missing a handful of usual runners today but was still able to score a middle-of-the-road performance.  The race was paced by the astounding improved time of Kristina Morel, who came in to lead CSI with a time of 28:00, good for 32nd overall.  Teammate Victoria Barry was in right after Morel at 28:03.  In 63rd position was Rebecca Vidal at 30:24 and the Dolphins finalized with Carissa Mazzeo’s 35:12 and Natalie Sabalza’s 37:04.

CSI finished with 319 points, fourth out of the seven CUNYAC schools represented and 11th overall.  St. Joseph’s College (LI) won the event with 34 points, followed by Pace University with 65 points and Hunter College with 67.

CSI will be back in action for its final test before the CUNYAC Championship next Sunday for the St. Joseph’s College (LI) Invitational.