Oct. 25, 2007

The Saint Joseph's cross country teams are gearing up to defend their home turf for the A-10 Championship on Saturday. The races will be held at Fairmount Park's Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia. The men's race is set to kick off at 10:00 a.m. and the women's race will commence at 10:45 a.m.

Both Hawk squads have a front-runner who look to garner All-Conference honors. On the men's side, junior Kyle Murray is running his first A-10 Championship. Murray has been the top harrier in every race he has run, finishing as high as second at the Ram Invitational in September. For the women, Andrea Florida has been the top runner in every race she has run. Florida boasts an impressive resume that already includes two All-Conference finishes (14th in 2005, seventh in 2006).

Murray and Florida will not be alone, however, as each have young squads looking to turn the tide in the championship stretch. Behind Murray is freshman Brian Guterl and sophomore Jon Sclafani. Both have been consistent runners in the 2007 season and are joined by the emerging Jimmy Jennings. Jennings, a sophomore, has posted two top-10 finishes this season at Haverford and Fordham.

After those four, the biggest key to the Hawks' success at Belmont Plateau may be in their senior co-captains, Will Rowland and Rich Ryan. Rowland and Ryan bring the most experience to the table as Rowland was an All-Conference runner in 2005 at Belmont (15th place) and Ryan has run in two A-10 Cross Country Championships before. Others that should help at Belmont are sophomore Chris Savino, and newcomers Jesse Brooks, Luke Fischer, and Ryan Fenimore.

As for the women, they have a freshman standout of their own in Aimee Chegwidden. Chegwidden, who received A-10 Rookie of the Week for her 11th place finish at Lafayette two weeks ago looks to finish near Florida in her first bid at All-Conference honors. After that, the Hawk harriers have been a little frenetic in their finishing. They will count on juniors Amy Rhein, Juli Stensland, as well as sophomore Annie Cushing to bolster the veteran side of the scoring. Also looking to contribute will be freshmen Jessica Di Cicco, Christina Morelli and Laura Faller.

Last year at Pittsburgh's Schenley Park, the Hawks finished sixth in the men's race and seventh in the women's race. Both squads will look to improve upon those finishes and surprise the teams ahead of them on their home course. The men had two top finishers in Mike DiDio (sixth) and Teddy Meyers (seventh) for the men and Andrea Florida (seventh) for the women. DiDio has since graduated and Meyers is the graduate assistant to men's head coach Mike Glavin.

The La Salle men are tabbed as favorites for 2007's edition, while the SJU men are tabbed sixth. The Charlotte and Richmond women are the favorites while the Hawk women are eighth.