DAYTON, Ohio - The University of Dayton men's cross country team got together at UD Arena's Time Warner Flight Deck to revel in another successful season on Sunday evening at its annual post-season awards banquet. The Flyers had much to celebrate, as they ran through a tough 2009 schedule to achieve many program firsts and their highest finish ever at the Atlantic 10 Championships.

Chris Lemon, a First Team All-Atlantic 10 runner and the conference's individual champion, was recognized as the Flyers' White-Allen Most Valuable Runner for a second-consecutive season. The junior headlined for UD all year, leading the team in every race and taking home A-10 Performer of the Week honors five times. He was also the program's first-ever conference champion and toppled the 8K school record in 2009, clocking in at 24:05 at the Notre Dame Invitational on Oct. 2.

"He had an amazingly consistent season, running in first position for us at every single meet," head coach Rich Davis said. "His academic work was also acknowledged as Chris was give the league's top honor as Men's Student-Athlete of the Year."

Another runner, Nate Addessi, was honored as the team's most improved runner for the fall season. In his rookie season, Addessi was able to develop rapidly and battled Greg Roeth for one of the best finishes by a rookie at the A-10 meet.

"Nate improved his work ethic as the season developed and put in some great workouts to steadily move up from tenth-man at the Flyer 5K to 5th-man at the A-10's," Davis said. "No one on the team at the beginning of the season, other than Nate, thought he would become 5th-man at conference. He finished out the season as the fastest 7th-man at the Great Lakes Regional 10K in recent Flyer history."

In the evening's final award, senior Matthew Peters was recognized with the team's "High Flyer" honor for his substantial academic and volunteer efforts over the past four years. The "High Flyer" designation is reserved for student-athletes that clearly exhibit the mission of the University of Dayton (Learn, Lead and Serve) and maintain a high standard of personal excellence in the classroom. He has been listed on the Dean's List each semester of his tenure at UD.

"Matthew trained and competed in every competition on his team's schedule while co-oping in 2008, "Davis said. "As a student-athlete, he has earned the Presidential Scholarship for academics. Being the team's SAAC representative, he has also been a part of the community service committee for 3 years. He became responsible for involving the Dayton YMCA and Urban Ministries to enable children to celebrate "Christmas on Campus." Additionally, he was instrumental in promoting donations from UD student-athletes to the Life Enrichment Center."