No. 3 Syracuse men win Spiked Shoe, women finish 3rd

No. 3 Syracuse men’s cross country won its second consecutive title to start the 2017 season, claiming first place Friday at the Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational at Penn State. The women finished third behind Penn State and Georgetown, ahead of Pittsburgh.

The men’s team had seven of the top-eight finishers last weekend at Colgate, where both the men and women won team titles at the Harry Lang invite . Sophomore Kevin James won the men’s title in the teams’ first competition of the 2017 season.

On Friday at PSU, Aidan Tooker and Paige Stoner were runners up for the men and women in their season debuts. Stoner ran the 5.2-mile course in 21:10, four seconds behind the winner. Kevin James finished fourth, with a time of 26:14. Joe Dragon (26:14), Dominic Hockenbury (26:18) and Simon Smith (26:25) placed sixth, eighth and 11th, respectively.

For the women, freshman Julien Webster (21:34) placed ninth, Shannon Malone (21:49) 13th, Madeleine Davison (21:53) 16th and Rachel Bonner (22:24) 27th.

The races were scored as duals. The Orange men winning all-five of their matchups. The closest contest was a 26-29 win over Penn State. No. 11 PSU beat the women, 31-24, and No. 26 Georgetown won, 32-25. The women beat Pitt, West Virginia, Bucknell and Edinboro.

Next, Syracuse will race in Boston for the Coast-to-Coast Battle on Sept. 22. In 2015 at the same meet, the SU men won the title and the women placed second. The Syracuse men have finished in the top-two at the event each of the last-three visits there.