Cortland State claimed supremacy in Division III football in the East by winning its first Lambert Meadowlands Award – capping a fall in which its men’s cross country team also captured an unprecedented honor by winning the Division III Men’s Cross Country Championships.

The Red Dragons, coached for the past 12 season by Dan MacNeill, finished the season with an 11-2 record. They won the New Jersey Athletic Conference title and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Division III Football Championship before losing to eventual champion Mount Union.

The showing by the football team and the cross country team’s NCAA title boosted Cortland State into first place in the 2008-09 Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup standings compiled by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, counting all fall competition. The school’s teams compiled 353 points in fall championships, ahead of defending Directors’ Cup champion Williams’ 326 points.

The Lambert award has been presented annually in Division III football since 1966, and is one of four awards – one in each NCAA Division I subdivision, Division II and Division III – announced by the Eastern College Athletic Conference and sponsored and managed annually by the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey.

The award is presented to the top-ranked team in each season’s final Lambert Meadowlands Football Poll. Washington & Jefferson finished second in this year’s poll, followed by defending Lambert award winner Wesley.

To be eligible for the Lambert Meadowlands Award, a team must be located in the East (New England, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania) or also may be located in a bordering state (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) if it plays half of its schedule against an eligible team.

In addition to its NCAA cross country and football performances, Cortland State collected points in the Directors’ Cup competition from three other teams representing the school. It is one of only six schools nationally that has placed in the top 20 each of the 13 years that the Directors’ Cup has been awarded in Division III. Its best finish was a tie for second place in 1997-98.