The men’s and women’s cross country teams used a home atmosphere to their advantage Friday at the 2003 Panther Open, as the men dominated the competition and the women stole fourth place.

Large clusters of blue could be seen while the male runners impressively ran down seven teams, the closest being second place Washington University, who was 27 points behind.

Former Eastern runner, Jason Bialka was there to win the race, but sophomore Jacob Stout was only five seconds behind him, with a time of 24:44.64. Stout was followed by the usual leaders Jeff Jonaitis, Dave Carlson and Jackson Johnson, who also had impressive races.

With a tight pack of Eastern blue, the remaining top seven runners followed closely. Zach Fairfield, Eric Werden, and Dan Strackeljahn took the 13th, 17th and 18th places respectively.

“I was very pleased with the way the men packed it up,” head coach John McInerney said. “We used team strength to dominate the field.”

Competing against 102 runners, the women Panthers showed much strength as well. Still missing key runners because of injury, the women runners used their resources and remained to take down five of the nine competing teams.

Angie Simone was Eastern’s first finisher, coming in at No. 9, followed by Stephanie Bone, who finished 14th overall.

The remaining top seven Panthers were mostly filled with young runners. Sophomore Jessica Peach came in at 21st, freshman Nicole Flounders at 26th, juniors Amanda Schutte and Kristin Chandler at 31st and 32nd, accordingly, and freshman Megan Balis finished up the pack at 40th place.

“The women are missing some key people, but they battled it out real nicely,” McInerney said. “They packed it up early on, and competed well.”

There to cheer the runners on was the EIU Cheer Team. University Board sponsored “Adopt A Runner” and invited the cheerleaders to pass out prizes and give-a-ways. “The cheerleaders attracted a large crowd,” McInerney said, “There was a lot of students, family, and friends out to enjoy the weather and some good running.”