BETHLEHEM, PA – The Johns Hopkins men's cross country team was on the road to take part in the Gold Division race of the Paul Short Invitational Saturday morning, finishing 16^th to beat out Division III foes Carnegie Mellon and RPI as well as Division I programs like Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown and nationally-ranked Syracuse in a stacked field of over 350 runners.
 
Emmanuel Leblond led the way for the Blue Jays once again in Saturday's 8K, crossing the line in 28^th with a time of 24:04.0. The junior sat in 34^th at the 5K mark before climbing six spots in the final three kilometers to earn the top-30 finish in what could be the strongest race in his career to date.
 
Next to cross the line for Hopkins was Lucas Rackers, whose time of 24:37.6 earned the graduate transfer 78^th — 75^th among point-scorers. Rackers sat in 185^th after the first mile but quickly worked his way up the field, climbing to 133^rd at the 5K mark before moving up 55 more places in the last 3 kilometers to cross the line in 78^th.
 
Rowan Cassidy used a strong kick en route to a 140^th-place finish — 133^rd among point-getters— climbing 26 spots in the last 1.7 kilometers to cross the line in 25:01.9, with Brady Ott (152^nd / 25:05.9) and Connor Oiler (178^th / 25:18.0) rounding out Hopkins' scoring runners.
 
The Blue Jays also had runners compete in the weekend's open race, with Aiden Tomov breaking 26 minutes for the first time in his Hopkins career to lead the way with a time of 25:48.8
 
Wingate won the meet with just 30 points followed by Harvard (95) and Utah State (109). The Blue Jays grabbed 16^th with 548 points to finish at the top-scoring Division III program and beat out a trio of Ivy League programs as well as the nationally ranked Orange.
 
Hopkins returns to action Saturday, Oct. 19 when they will compete at the Rowan Inter-Regional Invitational, with races set to begin at 10 a.m.