The American University cross country squads begin their championship season this Saturday, October 29, at the Patriot League conference meet at Lehigh University. On the men's side, AU looks to become only the second team in league history to win four straight team titles, while the women, led by Keira Carlstrom's (Oakton, Va./Oakton) quest for a third straight individual title, will look to regain the team championship that they won in 2002 and 2003

The men bring back four of their top seven from last year's title run, including sophomore Steve Hallinan (Drexel Hill, Pa./Cardinal O'Hara), who has been the team's top finisher in his three races this year. Brendan Fennell , who is the league's top returnee from last year's championship meet, will challenge Hallinan for the top spot. Both Fennell and Hallinan will be closely followed by junior Awit Yohannes (Derwood, Md./Magruder), who has performed progressively better in each race this year, and junior Conor Lanz (Valley Stream, N.Y./Valley Stream), who struggled at Penn State, but has shown great consistency in workouts this fall.

"We've had some solid team races at GMU and Penn State, but I don't think we've put it all together yet - and that makes this a really exciting time for us to go up to the league championships," senior captain Phil Turner (Reedsburg, Wis./Reedsburg Area) surmised. "There's just something about competing in your league meet that gets you going - conference championship meets are a very special thing. We just want to get up to Lehigh and represent AU and our program and continue building for the weeks ahead of us." At noon, when the gun goes off for the women's race, it would not be a surprise to see Carlstrom out in front from the start. The senior from Oakton, Va. has won the last two PL championships by at least 40 seconds and will have the opportunity to be the third woman in league history to win three straight individual PL titles. At Penn State 10 days ago, Carlstrom finished seventh against some of the country's best runners and beat the 2004 PL runner-up by just over a minute.

Fellow senior Zaia Wharton (Elkins, W. Va./Elkins) is coming off her best performance of the year at Penn State and will look to help the Eagles by improving on her fourth place finish from last year. As a team, the Eagle's top-five runners - Mary Moloney (Bay Village, OH/St.Joseph's Academy), Cathleen Ford (Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y./Cornwall Central) and Kate Lilley (Portland, Ore./St. Mary's) - will have to close the spread between themselves, Carlstrom and Wharton to compete with favorites Army, Navy and Bucknell,.

"The girl's team is mentally and physically prepared for this weekend, Carlstrom said. "We have been training hard for Patriot Leagues all season, so now we can finally see all our work pay off. I know everyone is really excited and is ready to lay it all on the line."

Fans of AU cross country and sports in general will have the rare opportunity to take the trip to the meet for the small cost of $10. A fan bus will leave Bender Arena at 7 a.m. to Bethlehem, Pa. and take all loyal cross country fans to Lehigh to watch both the men's and women's races and return to the district at roughly 5 p.m. Call Phil Gaeta at (202) 256-0034 if interested.

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