DOVER, Delaware — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore Cross Country squad saw men finish in second, third and fourth place at the DSU Alumni Cross Country Invite on Oct. 11 to push the team to a first-place tie with Howard, while the women finished third.

Freshman Nahom Ftwi (Germantown, Maryland) posted a PR of 27:34.2, while teammates John Akakeya (Staten Island, New York) and Edwin Kipruto (Iten, Kenya) finished third (27:34.5) and fourth (27:34.8) respectively after the trio ran most of the 8K course together.

"We were working strategically to get stronger in the back," Hawks coach Damion Drummond said. "We know we have three solid up front, so Nahom was our top finisher and the others finished closely. We were relying on him to get a feel for pushing himself."

Freshman Jordan Carrington (Gwyn Oak, Maryland) was the next Hawks finisher with a time of 30:33.9, in 12^th place. Classmate Malik Melhado (Brooklyn, New York) turned in a 36:04.1 as the Hawks' fifth-place finisher.

It was good enough for a first-place finish for the Hawks, but not much can be gleaned from the result when it comes to the Mid-Eastern Conference Championships which will take place Oct. 26 at the same course. None of the MEAC's south teams were at the event, while the north squads who were there all seemed to be employing the same gamesmanship.

"Most of the other teams had a strategy of just viewing the course and not really showing all their chips," Drummond said. "I think everybody had the same plan."

On the women's side, the Hawks were led by junior Asshanni Robb (Carson, Iowa) finished the 5K course in 20:07.7, despite missing time recently due to injury. Freshman Aurelia Jepkorir (Eldoret, Kenya) finished ninth (21:16.3) ahead of countrywoman and sophomore Fancy Kipyego who was 10^th (21:19.2).

Nikyia Wooten (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) finished 14^th with a time of 22:05.7 and Naomi English (Kensington, Maryland) closed out the women's scorers.

"Although the result wasn't that they finished first, the formula was the same for the women," Drummond said. "It was good to see Aurelia showing that she was coachable doing what we set out to do. She was trying to get her teammates engaged early in the race and pull forward some of our lower finishers at four, five and six."