Nov. 8, 2007

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Navy men's cross country team will compete at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Region Championship this Saturday at 11 a.m., on Lehigh's Goodman Campus Course in Bethlehem, Pa.

The top-two teams in the regional championship earn an automatic bid to the 2007 NCAA Championship at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre Haute, Ind., on Monday, Nov. 19. In addition to team entry, the top-four runners not associated with one of the automatically qualified teams will earn a spot in the national championship.

Thirteen additional at-large teams and two individual at-large runners will be selected by the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Track & Field Committee on Sunday night at 7 p.m.

Navy comes into the weekend voted as the eighth-best team in the region by the U.S. Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). Georgetown, ranked 14th in the nation, and 29th-ranked Princeton are predicted to finish among the top-two teams this Saturday. Two weeks ago at the Patriot League Championship in Easton, Pa., the Midshipmen came up one-point short of tying for the title with American, the seventh-ranked team in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

In last year's regional championship in Lock Haven, Pa., Navy placed ninth out of 28 teams. The Midshipmen have finished among the top-10 schools in the region at seven of the last-10 championships.

This Saturday's championship will also push Navy's runners to another level, as the race will be a 10k, as opposed to the 8k that every competitor has participated in during the fall.

All season, the Midshipmen have relied upon the services of seniors John Kress (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and John Olsen (Staten Island, N.Y.) to provide the front-end scoring punch. Kress, a two-time First-Team All-Patriot League runner, owns four top-five performances and led the team with a 27th-place finish at the regional championship one season ago. Olsen led the team across the finish line four times earlier this year and has five to-five showings to his credit.

Navy also possesses a solid blend of experience and youth in its depth and scoring, which was strongly evidenced at the league championship. Juniors Andrew Grant (Athens, Ga.) and Bill Prom (New Berlin, Wis.) each earned Second-Team All-Patriot League recognition by virtue of their respective ninth and 14th-place finishes. Freshman Andrew Hanko (Montville, N.J.) battled back from an early-season injury to round out Navy's scoring with a 16th-place effort to capture Patriot League Rookie-of-the-Meet kudos.

Navy has made 10 team appearances at the NCAA Championship during the program's 85-year history. The Midshipmen last traveled as a squad to the national championship in 1997, where they finished 21st.