Eastern head coach Geoff Masanet wasn’t worried about team placing on Saturday at the Belmont Invitational in Nashville, Tenn.

He said he wanted his teams to run together and not worry too much about where they placed in the overall scheme of things.

“Both sides did a good job of staying in packs and running as a team,” Masanet said.

Masanet said the men did a little better at sticking their noses out and managing to place second – a total of 84 points overall in the men’s 5K.

The Belmont Bruins won on their own course with runners stacking it up in the second, third, fourth and fifth positions for a total of 23 points.

Eastern’s top finishers finished side-by-side in team scoring.

Juniors David Holm placed 12th with a time of 15 minutes and 42.36 seconds and Jeremy Wheeler came in 13th with a time of 15:50.95.

Two of the freshmen from Crystal Lake, Ryan Hoklas and Derek Ericson were the next two scored runners and came in at 23rd and 24th overall.

Belmont won its own invitational with a team score of 23 points.

The women came in ninth place with 226 points total.

Middle Tennessee’s Festus Chemaio was the top-scoring finisher at 15:12.45. Gabriel Rodriguez, who ran unattached, finished the course 15:01.27.

Sophomore Erin O’Grady was the first Panther across the finish line, running the 4,000 meters in a time of 15:35.33 and placing 30th overall.

Junior Katie O’Brien and senior Amy LeJeune finished 44th and 47th, respectively.

“I wasn’t focused on where we were placing, it was nice that the men got second.” Masanet said. “Ninth isn’t exactly what I was hoping for on the women’s side but that wasn’t the point. For the most part they ran together and followed the race plans nicely, and that is really all I was asking for.”

Tennessee won the women’s title with 53 points, Vanderbilt was second with 58 points and Belmont and Alabama-Birmingham were tied for third with 75 points.

Tennessee’s Sarah Bowman was the top finisher at 14:00.58.