The Binghamton University men’s cross country team heads into this weekend primed to make program history.

The team is going into the America East championship as one of the favorites to win the team title, capping what may turn out to be the best season in the program’s history.

The Bearcats currently are ranked 10th in the NCAA Northeast region and just two weeks ago, were placed at a program-best ninth. Binghamton is the highest-ranked America East team in the Northeast region.

The team finished third in last year’s AE championships, which was the highest finish for the program. In uncharted waters as a favorite for the championship, the team has a strong focus in practice particularly this week.

“[It’s been] a moderate week as far as training goes,” BU head coach Annette Acuff said. “We’re trying to fine-tune our athletes’ speed and get focused during training.”

Just as any team with high expectations, the men’s squad has to deal with nerves as the championship meet approaches.

“I really don’t have a difficult job,” Acuff said on her team’s anxiety. “Our athletes are very bright; they realize it’s a high profile meet and they realize the competition they will be facing.”

Junior Erik van Ingen and graduate student Chris Gaube have led the team this season. Gaube captured the individual title at the Binghamton Invitational earlier this season. Van Ingen placed 17th out of 386 runners at the Lehigh invite — it was the highest finish by a Binghamton runner in the history of the event.

“The [team] realizes we need to go in there and keep on doing what were supposed to be doing,” Acuff said. “Focusing on where we need to be, team-wise and individually where they need to be, will help everything kind of take care of itself.”

The Lehigh invite provided the Bearcats a decent benchmark when comparing to the defending AE champion in New Hampshire. Binghamton finished 11th compared to 27th for the Wildcats. Acuff won’t rely on the Lehigh result to be a serious predictor of the AE championships.

“There are a lot of schools [that compete] at Lehigh; it’s a much bigger meet,” Acuff said. “There are only nine schools at the America East so it changes things a bit. We know we match up well with other teams’ top five and that’s what’s important.”

The men’s team had high expectations last season, but the team had an off day at last year’s AE championships as multiple runners struggled. However, the team has come a long way from 2006 when they finished eighth out of the nine teams for the second straight year.

Acuff has been with the program since before its rise to Division I. She has been with the team through the rough years and now gets to see the hard work at last pay off.

“I’m most excited that our team is really healthy right now,” Acuff said. “Our kids have trained extremely smart and they’ve done everything we’ve asked them to do. It’s exciting — it’s the best team we have ever had and the improvement over the last three years has been great.”

The team has the conference championship this weekend on their minds, but they have the NCAA Northeast regional meet just two weeks after.

“We’re basically in the last four or five weeks of our season,” Acuff said. “We have three weeks [until] the NCAA regional, which is equally as important as the AE meet. It gives us a broader perspective on how we stand in the Northeast.”

The AE championship meet is scheduled to take place at the University of Vermont this Saturday, Oct. 31. The women’s race is scheduled for 11 a.m. and the men’s race is slotted to start at noon.