The No. 23 Shippensburg University men's cross country team won its second Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Championship in school history on a cold and windy Saturday morning in Kutztown, claiming a narrow seven-point victory over longtime rival No. 20 Lock Haven.
 
Shippensburg (47 points) and Lock Haven (54 points) entered as the top teams in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Atlantic Region rankings, and with the Bald Eagles having won three straight league titles. The young but talented squad at Edinboro (63 points) also made a run for the title, as the Fighting Scot scoring runners all finished among the Top 18 – the best of any school in the competition.
 
The conference recognizes the Top 15 finishers with All-PSAC First Team awards: 10 came from either Shippensburg, Lock Haven or Edinboro. Of the pivotal scoring performances, SU was the only school to put three runners in the Top 7, and had its No. 5 runner finish three places ahead of his counterpart from Lock Haven. Edinboro got a No. 2 run from its top runner, but had its other four scorers finish 11-18.
 
Senior Kieran Sutton led the Raiders with a third-place run of 25:56.2. Sutton posted the best PSAC finish of his career and achieved his third All-PSAC award (5th [First Team] in 2015, 16th [Second Team] in 2014) and paced the Raiders for the third consecutive meet.  
 
Senior Braden Bruning stepped up for his best race of the season, running sixth in 26:05 for his highest PSAC performance to date as well. Bruning also notched his third All-PSAC performance in four seasons (7th [First Team] in 2015, 29th [Second Team] in 2014), and extends an impressive resume that features stints as an SU scoring (Top 5 team) runner in 25 of his 26 collegiate races.
 
Junior Alex Balla has now been an All-PSAC performer in all three of his conference championship runs – placing seventh 26:05 and crossing the finish line basically in tandem with Bruning. Balla has been a Top 3 scorer for the Raiders in the last four races and achieved his best place-finish of the season thus far.
 
Junior Calvin Conrad-Kline placed 12th in 26:22 – his best conference finish to date. Conrad-Kline earned his second straight All-PSAC First Team finish (13th in 2015) and has been among the Top 15 finishers in all four of his races this season.
 
One of the most important performances of the day from the Raiders came from freshman Rob Moser, a young runner who made his biggest impact to date on Saturday. Moser had been a scorer in his first three races this season, once as a No. 4 and twice as a No. 5, before breaking through with a 19th-place, All-PSAC Second Team run of 26:33.  
 
SU was the only school to have six runners in the Top 20, as sophomore Dominic Stroh was one place behind Moser and crossed the finish line 20th in 26:35. Stroh now has two All-PSAC Second Team performances after running 18th last year.
 
Redshirt-freshman Michael Urban put forth what was arguably his best run to date as a Raider, finishing 25th overall for an All-PSAC Second Team finish despite being the team's No. 7 runner. Urban had an impressive time of 26:56, breaking 27 minutes over 8K for just the second time in four races at that distance this season.
 
Junior Cole Nissley notched his third All-PSAC Second Team performance in three years, running 29th on Saturday in 27:04. Nissley ran 17th in each of his first two seasons.
 
Three men making their conference debut rounded out the Raider field. Freshman Brian Iatarola placed 42nd overall in 27:20, while senior Alec Brand finished 54th in 27:34 and freshman Brian Delany was 81st in 28:20.
 
Shippensburg has now finished among the PSAC's Top 3 in each of the last four seasons, including runner-up turns in 2014 and 2015. The only other PSAC Championship for the Raiders came back in 2010 at Cal, when SU memorably had all five of its scorers place in the Top 10 and its entire team finish among the Top 30.
 
In two weeks, Shippensburg will head to Slippery Rock and the Cooper's Lake Campground course for the 2016 NCAA Atlantic Region Championships and the first 10K competition of the year. The Top 4 finishers at the Atlantic Regionals will advance to the NCAA National Championships in mid-November. Next week, the members of the team will run at LHU's Go Fast River Run. 
 
Shippensburg (1st, 47 points)
3. Kieran Sutton 25:56.2
6. Braden Bruning 26:05.3
7. Alex Balla 26:05.4
12. Calvin Conrad-Kline 26:22.7
19. Rob Moser 26:33.8
20. Dominic Stroh 26:35.9
25. Michael Urban 26:56.0
29. Cole Nissley 27:04.4
42. Brian Iatarola 27:20.1
54. Alec Brand 27:34.0
81. Brian Delany 28:20.8