LOCKHAVEN, PA – In a race that came down to a team not named Johns Hopkins or Carnegie Mellon, it was the Blue Jays' men's cross country team finishing just one point behind the Tartans in second at Saturday's NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships.
 
Emmanuel Leblond continued his dominant junior campaign by taking home the individual title, with all seven Hopkins runners also finishing in the top 35 to garner All-Region honors, marking the fourth straight season the Blue Jays have achieved the feat.
 
Leblond becomes the second runner in program history to win the Regional Championship following Saturday's win, joining Gavin McElhennon who won it in 2022. The junior found himself in eighth just under halfway into Saturday's 8K, but climbed a pivotal six spots over the next 1.2 kilometers before taking the lead at the 6.6K mark en route to a four-second win, crossing the line in 24:12.8.
 
Lucas Rackers was next to cross the line for Hopkins, setting a new season-best time of 24:19.7 to finish third. The graduate student climbed 15 spots between the 3.6K and 4.8K markers to take the lead in the 8K before dropping behind Leblond and runner-up Matthew Coyle and wrapping up his strongest race of the season in third.
 
Kenny Wanlass also enjoyed one of the best races of his young career, running a sub-25 minute 8K for the first time this season, with the sophomore's time of 24:39.4 earning him eighth. Coming in just behind him was Rowan Cassidy whose time of 24:42.1 was also his first sub-25 race of the season and secured the junior ninth.
 
Hopkins' final point-scorer was Sean Enright, with the graduate student finishing in 19^th with a time of 24:59.0 before Connor Oiler (26^th / 25:18.8) and Andrew Myers (28^th / 25:20.5) rounded out the Blue Jays' seven All-Region honorees.
 
In a drama-filled race, it appeared as though the top two teams would finish tied for the championship — in which case Hopkins would have won based on tiebreak — but instead, it was a lone runner from Lancaster Bible that finished 17^th knocking Enright's point total from 18 to 19 to give the Tartans the one-point victory.
 
At the race's end, Carnegie Mellon walked away with a meet-low 39 points to win, followed closely by Johns Hopkins (40) and Marywood (128).
 
Leblond, Rackers, Wanlass and Cassidy all earn automatic individual bids to next weekend's NCAA Championships for finishing in the top seven among non-Tartan runners, while the rest of the Blue Jays team will have to wait to see if they receive an at-large bid.