GENEVA, Oh. – The Penn State Behrend men's track and field team returned to Spire this weekend after a trip there last Saturday.
Starting the event on Friday night, the DMR relay team of Dylan Buffington (Brookville, PA/Brookville), Josh Natalie (Erie, PA/Collegiate Academy-Strong Vincent), Matthew Grafton (Worthington, PA/Kittanning), and Matt McWilliams (Waterford, PA/Fort LeBoeuf) broke a school record and set the new top time to beat in Division III with a second place finish and time of 10:10.35.
On Saturday, the men's 4x800m relay started things off strong with a first place finish. Buffington, Natalie, McWilliams and Cody Cornell (Conneaut Lake, PA/Conneaut Lake) finished with a time of 7:50.84.
The other 4x800m relay team of Greg Graf (South Park, PA/South Park), Devin Beggs (Franklin, PA/Franklin), Shane MacMahon (Mohnton, PA/Governor Mifflin), and Phil Martone (Erie, PA/Mercyhurst Prep) took third with a time of 8:09.17.
In the 600m, Behrend had three runners finish in the Top 10. Natalie, Beggs and Devin Ross (Shenango, PA/Shenango) finished fifth sixth and seventh with times of 1:24.51, 1:26.01 and 1:27.12 respectively.
In the 800m, MacMahon was the top Lion finisher who took 13th with a time of 1:59.80. Out of 111 runners in the 200m, Grafton finished 23rd with a time of 22.73.
To finish out the track events, Buffington, Cornell, Graf and Grafton took home a fifth place finish in the 4x400m relay with a time of 2:23.93.
In field events, three Behrend athletes took Top 15 finishes. Mitchell Obenrader (Fryburg, PA/North Clarion) finished second in the shot put with a distance of 16.23m. Kevin Gardner (Waterford, PA/Fort LeBoeuf) tied for third in the high jump at 1.96m, while Luke Patten (West Middlesex, PA/West Middlesex) took 13th in the pole vault with a height of 4.28m.
The Lions travel to Ithaca next Saturday and Sunday. The meet starts at 10 a.m.
