Final Results

PRINCESS ANNE, Md. — One year after having their Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference record of seven straight cross country championships snapped, the Norfolk State men got back to their winning ways by capturing their eighth MEAC title in the last nine years on Saturday morning at Maryland Eastern Shore.

Senior Dominic Luka (Marietta, N.Y.) won his second straight MEAC individual title after crossing the finish line in 25:27.11. Luka helped the Spartans keep alive their streak of consecutive individual conference champions, which is now at four. He paced five All-MEAC Spartans who finished in the top 10 as NSU tallied 27 points, 55 ahead of runner-up UMES (82 points). The Hawks were the defending champions.

First-year sophomore Josef Tessema (Springfield, Va.) finished fourth overall in 25:59.46. Junior Jonathan Soimo (Kapsabet, Kenya) secured his third straight All-MEAC honor by finishing fifth in 25:59.88. Seniors Hillary Cheruiyot (Eldoret, Kenya) and Keenan Harris (Norfolk, Va.) both earned their fourth consecutive All-MEAC honors by coming in seventh and 10th, respectively.

“We've been waiting 365 days for this,” said NSU men's track and cross country coach Kenneth Giles, who won his 14th MEAC Most Outstanding Coach Award. “To us, finishing in second place is like finishing last. I'm very proud of the way our runners bounced back this year. They were on a mission and they came through.”

The Spartan men will participate in the 2008 NCAA Southeast Regional on Nov. 15 in Winston-Salem, N.C.