Lock Haven Repeats as PSAC Men's Cross Country Champions

BLOOMSBURG— Lock Haven's Ryan Blood won the 2006 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) men's cross country title to lead the Bald Eagles to their fourth straight team championship on Saturday at Bloomsburg University.

Running on a track made sloppy by 12 hours of rain prior to the start, Blood, the 2004 PSAC champion, covered the 8,000 meter course in a time of 25:44 and basically led from start to finish after breaking away main group in the opening portion of the race. Blood won by 12 seconds over last year's champ, Jeff Weiss of Slippery Rock. Finishing third from Clarion was Chris Clark who was two seconds behind Weiss in 25:58.

Finishing fourth overall from Indiana (PA) was Jorge Medina with a time of 26:04, while Justin Shepherd from Bloomsburg University took fifth in 26:16.

Rounding out the top 10 were David Niemira of Edinboro in sixth; Allen Hanslovan of Shippensburg in seventh with Iuri Pinto of East Stroudsburg eighth, while Shawn Moore and Cory Spidel of Lock Haven were ninth and 10th.

In the battle for the team title, Lock Haven easily won the crown finishing with 45 points, while runner-up Edinboro totaled 100 points. The Bald Eagles were deep with six of their top seven runners finishing in the top 20.

Also earning All-PSAC honors with a top 20 finish were Josh Arthur of Edinboro (11th); Aaron Benson (12th) and Brandon Pomerantz (13th) both of Lock Haven; Bill Herrmann (14th) and Sean McFarland (15th) both of Clarrion; Chris Robson (16th) of Lock Haven; Eric Brenner (17th) of Edinboro; Eric Kruttschnitt (18th) and Nate Shelly (19th) of Indiana and Andrew Butler (20th) of Millersville.

All the teams will be back in action next week at Slippery Rock for the NCAA East Regional Championships.