ERIE, Pa. – Catie Bertges (Erie, PA/Collegiate Academy) and Denis Lydon (Plum, PA/Plum) were awarded with the top Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) cross country honor on Wednesday and Coach Greg Cooper was named AMCC women's Coach of the Year on yet another banner day for the Penn State Behrend program.
Bertges was named women's Runner of the Year after winning the AMCC Championship meet with a time of 22:34. It was her third race victory of the 2013 season. Lydon was honored as co-men's Runner of the Year after the senior took the men's championship with a time of 26:28. That win marked his second first-place finish of the year.
Behrend also dominated the AMCC All-Conference selections. Along with Bertges, Katie Spade (Warren, PA/Warren), Danielle Stanko (Sagertown, PA/Sagertown), Haley Hughes (Cochrantown, PA/Cochrantown), and Katie Manno (Erie, PA/McDowell) were named All-AMCC. This is the fourth all-conference selection for both Bertges and Hughes and the third for Spade. Stanko, a sophomore, is an All-AMCC pick for the second straight year.
Lydon was an all-conference selection for the fourth time. The senior is joined on the men's AMCC All-Conference squad by teammates Jake DeWeese (Freedom, PA/Freedom Area), Michael Smolinski (Wexford, PA/North Allegheny), Josh Natalie (Erie, PA/Collegiate Academy), Tyler Yost (Waterford, PA/Fort LeBoeuf), Devin Beggs (Franklin, PA/Franklin), and Christian Labash (Baldwin, PA). This is the third all-conference selection for Smolinski and the second for Natalie, Yost, and Beggs. Freshman DeWeese and Labash were All-AMCC selections in their first seasons.
In all, 12 Behrend runners were all-conference selections.
An astonishing fifty percent of the women's cross country team was named All-AMCC.
With numbers like that, it's no wonder Coach Greg Cooper was named AMCC Women's Coach of the Year. He takes home the honor after guiding Behrend to both the team and individual championships on both the men's and women's side for the first time in program history. It is the sixth time Cooper has been named AMCC Coach of the Year.
