CARY, N.C. – The Shippensburg University women's cross country team is seeking its third consecutive Atlantic Regional Championship this weekend from the WakeMed Soccer Park in North Carolina for the NCAA's annual 6K regional meet. The race is set to start at 11 a.m., with initial forecasts calling for sunny skies and temperatures in the high 50s.

Last year's regional championship meet was a relatively close battle between Shippensburg, Kutztown and Bloomsburg – with Katie Frey and Lindsey Hollenshead serving as the No. 4 and No. 5 runners for Shippensburg in a 14-point victory over the Golden Bears.

Yet SU's 2010 squad is so deep that Frey and Hollenshead finished as the team's No. 9 and No. 10 runners at the PSAC meet; Frey achieved All-PSAC accolades with a 19th-place finish while Hollenshead ran a great race and finished 28th.

The top five runners for Shippensburg finished ninth place or better at the conference meet, and nine Lady Raiders received All-PSAC recognition. The second-place finisher at the conference meet two weeks ago – Edinboro – posted a score of 104 points that was 10 behind the composite score of SU's No. 6 through No. 10 runners in the same race.

Shippensburg's projected runners are as follows, listed in alphabetical order:

Senior Mary Dell is a two-time All-American and Shippensburg's No. 2 runner, who finished third at the PSAC Championships behind Neely Spence and Millersville's Elicia Anderson. Dell, a four-time All-PSAC performer, has placed second in two events behind Spence and finished seventh in a Division I-laden field at the Greater Louisville Classic.

Senior Abby Huber is also a four-time All-PSAC performer and projects as Shippensburg's No. 3 runner. She finished fifth at the PSAC meet – her best career finish at the conference championships, and was the team's No. 3 runner at the Greater Louisville Classic with a solid 5K time of 18:13.

Senior Jamie McCollum continued her cross country comeback with an All-PSAC time of 23:21 that was good enough for 17th place. McCollum achieved a 15th-place finish at the PSAC meet in 2007. She will be running in the regional meet for the first time since she established her 6K PR of 23:11 as a freshman.

Freshman Patty Reis was the PSAC's top rookie finisher with a 16th-place time of 23:18 at Cal U's Roadman Park. She finished seven places and 25 seconds ahead of the next closest freshman, Edinboro's Monica Ciarniello. Reis was the team's No. 7 runner at the conference meet.

Junior Neely Spence is the two-time defending Atlantic Region champion and is fresh off her third straight PSAC individual championship. She has won all four races in which she has competed this season; setting a course record at the Greater Louisville Classic and finishing 70 seconds ahead of the field at the PSAC Championships.

Sophomore Katie Spratford impressed at PSACs with a ninth-place time of 22:52 despite the fact it was just her third race of the season. She was SU's No. 5 runner at the conference championships but finished 25 places higher than any other No. 5 runner in the field.

Junior Sarah Strayer was the team's No. 6 runner at the PSAC Championships and finished 14th, an improvement of 24 places from her previous two runs at the conference meet. Strayer was the team's No. 3 runner at the national championships last season and finished among the Top 100 in Division II.

Notes: The last time that the regional championship was held at this location was back in 2003. That year, Kelly Stewart went on to earn All-American honors at the national championships. Stewart was SU's last All-American before Spence and Dell in 2008.