Joseph Chebet’s year is off to a good start.

The senior from Uganda competed in his first WKU cross country meet on Friday at the Belmont Opener in Nashville and finished second in the 5K with a time of 15:18.70.

The runner-up finish was the best from either the men’s or women’s team on Friday.

“It was a great start,” coach Erik Jenkins said of Chebet. “He knows where he needs to be. He needs to just continue to work hard to get there.”

Joseph Mokone wasn’t far behind with a 7th place finish, while Sean Hurd finished 20th.

On the women’s side, freshman Lindsey Henkin finished 22nd in the 4K with an overall time of 15:32.6

“I think they did OK considering it was the first race,” women’s distance coach Michelle Scott said. “There is a lot of room for improvement.”

As for Henkin’s 22nd place finish, Scott said, “I knew she was going to do well.”

Both the men’s and women’s teams finished fifth at the meet.

Tennessee won on the men’s side, while Vanderbilt won the women’s meet.

“The meet went OK,” Jenkins said. “Obviously there is a lot of work to do on both sides, but the kids came out and competed.”