WALTHAM, Mass. – The Bentley University women's cross country team will be looking to qualify for the NCAA Division II Championships for the second time in three years when the 2013 NCAA Division II East Regional is contested Sunday afternoon at Franklin Park.

The 6,000-meter women's race is scheduled for 1:30 pm and the 10,000-meter men's event will follow at 2:30 pm.

The Falcon women, coming off a third-place finish in last month's Northeast-10 Championships, are currently ranked second in the regional, trailing only Stonehill College. Three teams will advance out of the East for the trip to Spokane, Wash. for the nationals.

Bentley is led by junior Tara Dooley (Lee/Lee HS), the Northeast-10 Women's Cross Country Athlete of the Year despite missing the conference championships with an injury. She has two seconds and a third in her three races this fall, and finished second in the regional in both 2011 and 2012.

Coach Kevin Curtin will also be counting upon grad student Amy Varsell (Burlington, Conn./ Lewis S. Mills HS) and senior captain Ashley Nichols (Kenmore, Wash./Inglemoor HS), both of whom were impressive in the Northeast-10 Championships. Varsell finished second, just a second off the winning pace, and Nichols joined her on the All-Conference first team with a sixth-place finish.

                The Bentley men's team, in the midst of a reloading season after qualifying for the NCAA Championships a year ago, will be looking to crack the top ten on Sunday. Senior Conor Higgins (Randolph, N.J./ Randolph HS) was the team's top finisher in the New Englands a month ago and sophomore Tom Dean (Portland, Maine/Deering HS) set the pace for the Falcons in the Northeast-10's, a meet in which ten of the team's top 11 were freshmen or sophomores.