WALTHAM, Mass. – A trip to Joplin, Mo. for the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships will be the goal for the Bentley University Falcons when they compete in the 2012 East Region Championship Sunday at Mine Falls Park in Nashua, N.H.

The 10,000-meter men's race will go off at 12 noon, and the women will follow an hour later. The top three teams, as well as the top three individuals who aren't part of a qualifying team, will advance to the championships, which will be held Nov. 17.

Last year, when only two teams qualified, the Falcon women took second to make their first-ever trip to the nationals and the men just missed out, placing third. In the current regional rankings, Bentley's men's team is fourth (behind Stonehill, American International and UMass-Lowell) and the women are ninth after a disappointing showing at the Northeast-10 Championships two weeks ago.

Between the two teams, coach Kevin Curtin will have six runners who earned a position on the All-Region team a year ago competing on Sunday. That list is headed by sophomore Tara Dooley (Lee/ Lee HS), the runner-up last year as well as in the last two NE-10 Championships. She finished 4.3 seconds back of AIC's Jeptui Cherutich in 2011 and trailed her by 15 seconds at the conference meet last month.

Junior Ashley Nichols (Kenmore, Wash./Inglemoor HS) and senior Caitlin Fahey (Bridgewater/Coyle-Cassidy HS) were 18th and 20th in last year's women's meet, and the senior trio of Rob Dextradeur (Branford, Conn./Branford HS), Craig Robinson (Scarborough, Maine/ Scarborough HS) and John Drago (Avon, Conn./Avon HS) placed 15th, 16th and 19th, respectively, on the men's side.

Bentley is the only men's team in the field that has three returning top-20 runners, and the Falcon women are one of only two with three top-20 finishers entered this weekend.

Program