Nov. 15: St. Lawrence University's men's cross country team grabbed its team ticket to the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships next weekend, taking the Atlantic Regional automatic berth with an impressive win at Genesee Valley Park in Rochester on Saturday.

SLU finished the 39-team race with 63 points with SUNY Geneseo second with 115, Cortland third with 128 and RPI fourth with 151 points. Ranked seventh in the most recent national poll, the Saints placed two in the top ten and had all five of its scorers in the top 25 to earn a seventh straight NCAA team appearance. A consistent top five finisher in the Atlantic Regional, Saturday's win was the first for the Saints in the regional in the last several years.

"I am very proud of the guys for running a great race and for the entire program," said Saint coach John Newman. "We had tremendous support today from out students, alumni and parents who came out to Genesee Valley Park and extended their well wishes and congratulations over the last couple of days."

The top two teams in the region earn automatic qualification to the NCAA Championship meet which will be run Nov. 22 at Wilmington, OH.

The Saints, who had been swapping positions in the regional and national polls with Geneseo, made an emphatic statement with the head-to-head win, as the two teams were even at the mid-point of the 8000 meter race, but Saint runners moved steadily up in the pack to pull away.

Sophomore Thomas Caulfield led the Saints, moving up seven places in the second half of the race to finish third overall in 25:16.3. And, as has been their pattern throughout the current season, the Saints finished in a tight grouping with all five scorers within a 33 second span and four within 23 seconds of each other. Caulfield is now in a very select group of Saint runners who have placed in the top three at a regional and one of few sophomores to do so.

Senior Trevor Bibb was the second Saint finisher in 25:24.1 as he moved up nine spots from the midpoint to finish seventh overall. Sophomore Joe Smith was 11^th in 26:26.9, Wesley Kirui was 17^th in 25:39.2 and Spencer Patterson completed the Saint scoring with a 25^th place finish in 25:49.5.

Harrison Sloan was the sixth Saint finisher, 40^th overall in 26:06.5 while Scott Smolensky rounded out the Saint top seven with a 59^th place finish in 26:25.3.