Men’s Cross Country Wins Second Straight AMCC Championship

CRESSON, Pa. – The Penn State Behrend men's cross country team won the 2012 Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) Championship on Saturday afternoon. 

With a team score of 27, the Lions defeated runner-up Franciscan by 12 points to retain the title.

Denis Lydon (Plum, PA/Plum) led Behrend with a second place finish.  Lydon crossed the line at 28:18.3.  Michael Smolinski (Wexford, PA/North Allegheny) was close behind in third place at 28:22.8.

After two Franciscan runners placed fourth and fifth, Matt McWilliams (Waterford, PA/Fort LeBoeuf) and Andrew Mason (Wilmington, DE/Concord) came through for the Lions with sixth and seventh place finishes respectively.  McWilliams was the top-freshman finisher with a time of 28:52.2 while Mason came in at 29:12.4.  Rounding out the top-five for Behrend and clinching the win was Jason Zabelsky (North Huntingdon, PA/Norwin) who finished in ninth place at 29:19.3.

The top-five runners for the Lions along with Devin Beggs (Franklin, PA/Franklin), Tyler Yost (Waterford, PA/Fort LeBoeuf), and Josh Natalie (Erie, PA/Collegiate Academy) all earned First-Team All-AMCC accolades for their performances.  Beggs took 12^th place at 29:40.9, Yost finished in 13^th place with a time of 29:44.6, and Natalie placed 14^th after finishing in 29:49.3.

Behrend will be back in action on November 10^th at the NCAA Mideast Regional. Start time is set for 11 a.m.