WALTHAM, Mass. – The Bentley University men's cross country team is in Joplin, Mo. for Saturday morning's NCAA Division II Championships, as is Falcon grad student Tara Dooley (Lee/Lee HS) of the women's team.

The championships, which are being hosted by Missouri Southern State University, will be streamed live at www.NCAA.com/livevideo. The women's race will get underway at 10 am CT (11 am ET) and the men will follow at 11:15 am CT (12:15 pm ET).

Dooley will be making her fourth appearance at the nationals in the last five years, having missed last season when she was sidelined by injury. She qualified by placing fourth in the Nov. 8 East Regional, just her second race of the fall.

In her previous trips to the NCAAs, Dooley finished 49th in 2011, 58th in 2012 and fourth in 2013. That latter performance was the highest by an East Region runner since 2006.

While Dooley is championship-tested, no one of the men's team has advanced to the nationals before. Bentley, which placed second in the regional two weeks ago to punch its ticket, made its most recent trip in 2012 and only one of this year's top seven, senior Tom Dean (Portland, Maine/Deering HS) was on that roster, was on that roster and he didn't run in any championship races as a freshman.

Joining Dean on the trip to Missouri were classmate David Cooper (Woburn/Woburn HS), juniors Erik Alatalo (Wilmington/Wilmington HS) and Nik Haas (Ramsey, N.J./Ramsey HS), sophomores Ryan Cadorette (Saco, Maine/Thornton Academy) and Graham Chapski (East Greenwich, R.I./East Greenwich HS), and freshman Cody Murphy (Dunbarton, N.H./Goffstown HS).

At the regional, those seven all placed in the top 38 with a split of 59.93 seconds between the first and seventh runners. Dean was the team's top finisher (16th), Cadorette was immediately behind him (17th) and Haas was 20th.

Under USTFCCCA East Region coach of the year Kevin Curtin, Bentley will enter the national's ranked 24th in Division II. The Falcons' top finish during its five previous trips to the NCAAs was 18th in 2000.

A total of 32 men's teams and 32 women's teams will be competing.