College's Cross Country, Golf Teams Set for EPCC Tournaments

Two Pennsylvania College of Technology fall sports teams are ready to step into Eastern Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference tournament action.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, the Wildcat men's and women's cross country teams will run at Penn State-Scranton in the EPCC Championships, while, at 11 a.m. Monday, the College's golf team will have three players seeded among the Top 10 at Golden Oakes in Fleetwood.

Running for the men's cross country team will be Bill Dillingham (Annville), Paul Merces (Seabright, N.J.), Nate Sayre (Wellsboro) and Kevin Bachelor (Hopewell).

Penn College women runners include defending state champ Chrissy Seward (Pottsville), Cindy Earnest (Montoursville), Julie Rutt (Elizabethtown) and Megan Tomeo (Tionesta).

"We're going in with the idea that this will be a good training run to get ourselves set up for states (Pennsylvania Collegiate Athletic Association championships) next week," said cross country Coach Mike Paulhamus. "The way team scores are going, we don't have a chance of winning the conference meet."

For the Wildcat golf team, Matt Haile (Shikellamy) is seeded fourth for the EPCC tourney, Christian Scheller (Moscow) eighth and Brandon Gosciminski (Southern Columbia) 10th. Another Penn College golfer, Kyle Renn (Shikellamy), is seeded 13th, and Coach Chet Schuman thinks all four have a good chance of advancing to the Pennsylvania Collegiate Athletic Association Championships Oct. 14-15 at Penn State.

"It's going to be very competitive. You've got Northampton and Keystone, who have excellent teams and could send four to six each (to states), but we're in the same boat. We could send all four to states. They all have the ability and, if they continue to shoot like they have been shooting, I really think they have an equal chance," Schuman said. "It's going to be interesting."

During Penn College's final regular season outing Thursday, Scheller became the second Wildcat this season to medal in a league tournament when he tied Northampton's Bob Givey with a 72. Earlier this season, Haile became the first Penn College golfer to medal since 1994. Commenting on how Scheller has improved his game by 27 strokes in the last two weeks, Schuman noted, "he put his driver away." As a team Thursday, Penn College finished third among seven squads with a season-low score of 326 to finish with a 20-10 record.