The Eastern men’s cross country season began the same way the last one ended – with a senior taking home the title.

Senior Jeff Jonaitis replaced graduate Kyle O’Brien’s shoes by winning his first collegiate individual title at the Hawkeye Invitational Friday. Jonaitis squeaked out a narrow win over Iowa junior Chris Jensen by a mere two seconds.

“He’s run in the shadows of O’Brien and Dan Mackey, and he ran a real controlled pace,” Eastern head coach John McInerney said.

In the dual matches, Eastern defeated the host Iowa Hawkeyes (26-30) and North Central (27-28) but were defeated in a close match by Wisconsin(29-26).

In the team results, Eastern finished second behind the Badgers by 13 points.

Sophomore Dave Carlson finished four seconds behind Jonaitis in a solid third place.

Freshman Erik Werden completed his first collegiate event in 12th place and 26 seconds behind the leader.

“We had five or six runners in the mix early to win but some of our younger runners were over their head in its conditioning,” McInerney said.

The Eastern women’s squad was defeated by the host Iowa Hawkeyes in a dual match. Hawkeye runners Sarah Arens and Katie Donlon finished 1-2 with Panther junior Angie Simone finishing 31 seconds off the pace in third position.

“A lot of positives are taken from a meet like this,” McInerney said. “However, Iowa did beat us up pretty good.”

The next highest finishing Eastern competitor was eighth and ninth place when sophomore Kristin Chandler and freshman Nicole Flounders both crossed at 11 minutes, 28 seconds.

Both the men’s and women’s squads take a week off before the Bradley Open on Sept. 12th.

Our young girls really did a good job of bunching up and chasing people, but we need to get healthier over time,” McInerney said.