Men's Tennis Team Wins AMCC Championship
It was a good year to draw home court advantage in the playoffs for the Behrend Lions. After going 6-0 in the regular season, coach Jeff Barger's team was able survive a rain-delayed, hard-fought day and take home the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) Title in front of its home crowd.
The day kicked off at 9:00 a.m. with doubles play. All three Behrend doubles pairs won their first round match-ups to move into the championship match. Tides turned quickly, however, with Behrend losing in all three finals pairings.
In first round singles the Behrend men again performed exceptionally well, winning five of six matches. In the championship round John Barber (New Castle/Neshannock) and Matt Meyer (Rush, NY/Rush-Henrietta) breezed through their matches to become the third-singles and sixth-singles champions, respectively. With two other Behrend players losing in the finals round, the tournament came down to the first-singles match between Frostburg State's Justin Stephens and Behrend's Ryan Deimel (Erie/Cathedral Prep). With Frostburg and Behrend knotted at ten points apiece, and with all other matches completed partway through their match, everything would come down to these two players.
Frostburg's Stephens began the match well, winning the first set 7-5 and taking a 5-2 lead in set two. Deimel turned the match around, however, by taking set two to a tiebreaker. After winning the tiebreaker 7-4, Deimel went on to win the third set 6-2.
Strong performances all around for the Behrend Lions gave them their second AMCC Title, which they had not won since the inaugural AMCC season in 1998. Head coach Jeff Barger went on to say, "We had been playing better and better the last few weeks and we just had to do it for one more day. Our goal was to make it to all of the finals matches, and we made eight of the nine. Although we had hoped to win more of those eight finals matches, the players did what they needed to do by staying at their level, and by doing so were able to win us the team championship."
The AMCC Tournament wrapped up a 14-7 year for the Behrend Lions. After winning the 2004 title expectations will be high for next spring. With six of eight players returning, the team will likely make a strong run at defending its title in 2005.