St. Lawrence University's men's cross country team will be on familiar ground as far as the level of competition is concerned when it runs in the 2013 NCAA Division III Championship race in Hanover, IN on Saturday.

The Saint men, who earned an at-large bid to the championship after finishing fourth at the NCAA Atlantic Regional, join the women's team to make St. Lawrence one of only six schools among the 828 Division III teams which sponsor the sport to have both teams represented in the national championship race in each of the last six seasons.

Five of the eight runners who will make the trip to Hanover have run at the national championship level before. Junior Trevor Bibb and sophomores Wesley Kirui and Spencer Patterson will be making their second straight national appearance while junior Scott Smolensky will make his third and senior Brendan Courneene his third. They will be joined by freshman Thomas Caulfield, senior Jon Eng and grad student Landen Elliott-Knaggs to make up the championship team with seven of the eight runners participating in the race.

Bibb, Courneene, Kirui and Caulfield have been consistent top four scorers for the Saints throughout the season while the others have stepped up with some big finishes in various events during the course of the season.

Bibb has been the top Saint scorer in five of seven races and has four top tens to go with an 11th and 12th place finish. He was second in both the NYSCTC and Liberty League Championships and led the Saints at the Atlantic Regional with a 11th place finish.

"Trev just killed it at the regional," said Saint coach John Newman. "He worked up to the lead group by two miles and took a couple of pulls at the front of the field before losing a bit of ground in the last mile. Turns out that the heel cup of one of his spikes was dangling after having taken a spike to his heel at the start. His ability to put himself in a lead position with those conditions really showed his heart and determination."

The Saints, who turned in one of their best ever five-man spreads at a regional meet, had five runners earn All Region honors. Bibb was joined by Patterson, Caulfield, Smolensky and Kirui on the All Region team as Bibb led the pack with a 25:23.3 clocking and Kirui was the fifth finisher for SLU 28.4 seconds later.

Patterson, who had been running as a fifth or sixth man for the Saints through much of the season, had a breakout race at the regional and was the second Saint finisher, 18th overall. Caulfield was the second freshman finisher in the Atlantic Regional in 24th and has been among the Saint scoring group in five of seven races and was the sixth man in the other two.

Kirui has been one of the top three scorers for the Saints three times this season and in the top five scorers in all but one race. "Wes ran a fantastic race at regionals to grab an all-region spot and Scott Smolensky came on strong in the second half to go from 78th at the 2k mark to 33rd by the finish," Newman said.

Smolensky had a win in the opening race of the season and scored for the Saints in five of seven, finishing at six and seven in the other two. Captain Elliott-Knaggs was fourth finisher for the Saints in two races, third in another and top seven in six, while Eng missed some time mid-season, but had a strong showing in the regional to earn a trip to nationals as the alternate.