First serious matchups in Northeast come to Bowdoin Park.

The road to Portland for Northeast teams gets started Saturday at the Bowdoin Park Classic.

Divided over two varsity races, some of the teams that are expected to fight it out for automatic berths to NXN in December will face off on the course that will once again host the NXR NE and NXR New York. Only a handful of teams among New York's elite will make the trip to Bowdoin since the 5,000-meter course has been the site of the New York Federation Championships over the years and will be again this year.

Site – Bowdoin Park, Wappingers Falls, NY. 

Girls Varsity I race  - The top team should be Niskayuna from the Albany area.

Boys Varsity I race – This could be the race of the day with the top two teams from last year's NXR Northeast squaring off. CBA (NJ) bounced back from a second-place finish at the 2016 New Jersey Meet of Champs to claim the regional win and then went onto Portland and finish seventh. CBA is currently ranked No. 1 in the Northeast. Staples CT is the defending Connecticut Open champion and is currently ranked fourth in the Northeast. Also in the field will be Kingsway NJ, which was a team to watch in the preseason Northeast rankings. The individual race could be interesting with Devon Hart (Point Pleasant Boro NJ) the top returner from the New Jersey Meet of Champs and the 2017 Meet of Champs 3,200-meter champion. He will face off against the No. 4 returner in New Jersey, Brian Hill of CBA, and Ben Seiple of Staples, who placed third in the New England 3,200 last spring.

Girls Varsity II Race – New York City’s Benjamin Cardoza should be the team to beat.

Boys Varsity II – Another great team race is on tap with Northeast Regional No. 2 St John's MA, which returns six from its team that finished sixth at last year's NXR meet, facing off against Princeton, the defending New Jersey Meet of Champs team titlist. Princeton is fifth in the Northeast rankings. Also in the race will be Smithtown, a team knocking in the door of the top five rankings in New York. The individual race could set the stage for the team battle as William Hare of Princeton, the No. 2 returner from NJ, will square off against Tristan Shelgren, who posted a 9:10 2-mile in spring track for St. John's.