The Binghamton University men’s and women’s cross country teams opened their seasons last Friday at the Army Tri-Meet in West Point.

Binghamton finished third in the team standings in both races, with Cornell University finishing first and Army finishing second for both the men and the women.

“It was solid start for us,” head coach Annette Acuff said. “As a team, we weren’t really looking for anything spectacular for our first meet. We just kind of wanted to get the athletes racing again and get the rust out from not having raced since the spring.”

Senior Jeff Martinez led the way for the men’s team, placing seventh overall. He finished the 8,000-meter race in a time of 24:41.

Martinez was followed by sophomore Jesse Garn, who placed ninth (24:49), and sophomore Matt Johnson, who placed 12th (24:58).

Cornell won the men’s race with 18 points, host Army followed with 53 points and Binghamton rounded out the standings with 64 points.

“It was … pretty competitive to start,” Acuff said. “It was good for us to see that level of competition and a tough challenging course. It was a good meet to get going and to challenge us.”

Cornell freshman Ben Potts won the race with a time of 24:09.

On the women’s side, Binghamton freshman Alexis Hatcher placed 26th with a time of 19:24 in the 5,000-meter course and was Binghamton’s top runner. Fellow freshman Lizzie Greiner finished shortly after Hatcher in 29th.

The Big Red finished with 17 points for the win, Army posted 42 points and the Bearcats finished with 82 points.

Cornell junior Katie Kellner finished first on the women’s side with a time of 17:02.

“We didn’t have a long preseason,” Acuff said. “We’re just spending the next month training and getting kids ready to compete at Lehigh [University] and I think Lehigh will look a lot better. We’ll be a lot stronger and will look to perform better at that meet.”

Binghamton is scheduled to head to Lehigh University for the Paul Short Run on Sept. 28.