Sept. 25, 2008

The Tennessee cross country team will travel to Williamsburg, Va., Saturday for the Colonial Inter-Regional Challenge. The meet is hosted by William & Mary and features another competitive slate for the Vols as they continue preparations for the postseason.

"This meet will be a greater challenge to our team, having to travel out of our region for a competitive meet," Tennessee head coach George Watts said. "We had excellent competition for the first meet, but we will see a couple of highly-ranked teams as well as a larger field this weekend. This meet is a perfect progression for our team as far as the schedule is concerned."

Joining Tennessee at the start line will be 23rd-ranked William & Mary as well as Michigan State, St. Joseph's, Richmond, Campbell, Norfolk State, Hampton, Bridgewater, Washington & Lee, Longwood, Johns Hopkins and Randolph. The Vols are ranked sixth in the South Region heading into Saturday's race.

Tennessee will start 12 runners led by seniors Andrew Press and Steve Tobin. Press earned a runner-up finish at the UT Invitational on Sept. 20, while Tobin finished sixth overall. Tobin and sophomore Michael Spooner are native Virginians, having run for West Springfield High School in northern Virginia before coming to Knoxville. The other Vols competing Saturday are juniors Chris Rapp, Chris Kane, Mike Brodsky as well as sophomores Stuart Chandler, David Clabo, Steve Fassino, and freshmen Ryan Beabout, Chris Bodary and Axel Mostrag.

The Vols, making their first trip to Williamsburg under Watts, will look to drop their times and their spread as they move forward to even larger meets in the weeks ahead.

"We will have a continued goal of closing the gap between our top five scorers and top seven finishers," Watts said. "We had a very good start last week with a 43-second spread, and I hope we can close that gap about 2-3 seconds each meet. As a team we should be more comfortable at race pace now that we have one under our belt."

The race is being contested at Dunbar Farms and begins at 10 a.m. ET.