The Penn State Behrend Lions won the AMCC championship over Medaille, after beating La Roche in the semifinals to punch their ticket to the NCAA D3 tournament.

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Senior Anthony Crivelli, helped fuel the Behrend Lions to a 3-2 victory over the La Roche Redhawks in Wednesday evening’s Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) semifinal. Behrend entered the game with only one regulation loss, and hoped to continue their domination against a Redhawks team, that seeked a shot at their first championship title in program history. A slow start left the game scoreless until the 31st minute, when Crivelli netted his first of two goals. The score remained 1-0 until the 74th minute, when Behrend senior, Sean Gallagher, accepted a cross-field pass from teammate Dakota Lange and fired it past the opposing goalkeeper into the top right corner to extend the Lions’ lead to 2-0. La Roche played hard the entire game, but did not manage to break through on the scoreboard until the 81st minute, when the officials awarded Redhawks’ leading scorer Ximo Vincent a penalty kick, which he converted. Behrend’s Crivelli answered back just 12 seconds later with his second goal of the game, and eighth of the season. The Redhawks scored again in the waning minutes of the game, but their rally fell short as Behrend held on to win 3-2 to secure their championship berth versus Medaille.

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Behrend hosted 2nd seed Medaille in the AMCC Men’s Soccer Championship game Saturday, Nov 5th. This is the ninth time in the past ten years that these two teams faced off in the championship. The lions were searching for their third title in four years, while Medaille wanted their first title since 2012. The two teams are very familiar with each other, and this resulted in a physical game. The physicality led to 7 yellow cards and 30 penalties between the two teams. However, Behrend did not lose focus on the main goal, a championship. Just five minutes and 48 seconds in, Behrend’s leading goal scorer, Crivelli, put one in the back of the net. At 19 minutes, Crivelli would show why he led the team in goals. He dribbled between three Mavericks, and then chipped his shot over the goalkeeper to give Behrend a 2-0 lead, which they would take into halftime. 12 minutes into the second half, Crivelli finished off his hat trick with his third goal. Sean Gallagher would add another goal 76 minutes in. Giving Behrend a 4-0 win, and an automatic bid to the division 3 NCAA tournament. The 4-0 win is also Behrend’s largest margin of victory in a championship game in its storied history.

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The Lions will play Scranton, winners of the landmark conference, on Saturday, at 7:30 p.m. in Cortland New York.