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Senior Hillary Mugun (left) and head coach Alton McKenzie (right).
Senior Hillary Mugun (left) and head coach Alton McKenzie (right).
Posted: Oct 21, 2012

Hillary Mugun Captures Firebirds' First ECC Men's Cross Country Individual Title

Results

BROOKVILLE, NY - Running away from the field at mile two, senior Hillary Mugun continued his marvelous season with an individual victory in the East Coast Conference Men's Cross Country Championships on Sunday afternoon, hosted by LIU Post. The Firebirds placed seventh out of nine teams overall.

Mugun (Accounting - Nandi Hills, Kenya/Meteitei) took control of the race midway through the 8K race and completed the course in 26:01. This marks the first individual ECC title for any Firebird runner as Mugun made good on his selection as the pre-season ECC Runner of the Year back in August.

Mugun's strong performance was followed by his teammate, senior Zephaniah Koech (Accounting - Nandi Hills, Kenya/Terige HS), who finished 19th in the field of 75 runners with a time of 27:51. The next scorer for the Firebirds was freshman Baldin Needham (Sociology - Browns Town, Jamaica/St. Jago HS) who was 34th with a time of 29:09.

The fourth scorer for the Firebirds was freshman Najee Anderson (Criminal Justice - Bowie, MD/Charles Flowers HS) with a time of 32:10 for 59th overall. Junior Dorrelle Smith (Criminal Justice - Daytona, FL/Trinity Christian Academy) was 71st for the Firebirds with a time 34:37 to round out the scoring for District of Columbia.

"What an amazing day for Hillary and the University of the District of Columbia Cross Country program," said a very excited head coach Alton McKenzie. "All season we've been gearing towards the championship portion of the season, and clearly all the hard work and preparation has paid off big time. Hillary ran a great race and was deserving of the victory. Zephaniah also ran an exceptional race and came up just short of an All-Conference spot. Overall, our entire men's team ran great and competed aggressively, which is all I can ask. We're looking forward to having a chance to measure ourselves against the best in our region in the next two weeks."

Next up, the Firebirds will compete in the NCAA East Regional Championship in Nashua, NH.