By: Mike Brown, News Correspondent

In all four races he ran in this fall, freshman Eric Jenkins finished first among runners on the Northeastern men’s cross country team.

His performance this season, along with his recent 13th place finish (in a field of 318 runners) at the New England Championships has earned him Huntington News Player of the Week honors.

Jenkins won two races so far this season, including the Bryant Invitational, his first collegiate race.

“I’ve surprised myself, definitely,” Jenkins said. “I was surprised to win [the Bryant Invitational], and then I knew I’d be able to compete [in Division I].”

The other race Jenkins won was the Central Connecticut State University Ted Owen Cross Country Invitational, where he beat out 53 other runners and had a winning margin of 31 seconds.

Jenkins, a native of Portsmouth, N.H., has been named Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Runner of the Week three times already this season. Not bad for Jenkins, who said that his expectation for this year was just to be a top runner on the team.

He also said he has higher expectations for himself than he did when he started.

“In New England’s [Championship] I was disappointed. I want to get a much faster time in [the] conference [championships],” Jenkins said.

The CAA Cross Country Championship is Oct. 30 in Wilmington, North Carolina.

In order to place better at the CAA Championship, Jenkins will continue to push himself in practice. To prepare for a race, Jenkins runs approximately 55 to 60 miles per week.

“That’s probably the lowest number [of miles] on the team,” Jenkins said. “The day before I race I only run six miles as opposed to nine.”

Jenkins excelled at different race lengths. While most NCAA Cross Country races are eight kilometers, Jenkins has also won the five-kilometer with a time of 15:58.8 at the Bryant Invitational.

“I do better at medium distances,” he said.

In his senior year at Portsmouth High School, he also ran track & field in addition to cross country.

“I knew if I wanted to run in college, I had to run year round,” Jenkins said.

Though he tears up the competition as a cross country runner, Jenkins proudest accomplishment as a runner came in at a track event his senior year of high school. He won the 1600-meter event at the New Hampshire Meet of Champions in Nashua, running the race in the incredible time of 4:15.

Jenkins started running cross-country in sixth grade, and by seventh grade he started winning races.

“I really liked winning and decided to keep running and push myself,” Jenkins said.

Aside from running, Jenkins is also an avid basketball player. He has played in recreational leagues and continues to play in his spare time. Academically, he has not declared a major and has not decided what career he would like to pursue.

Jenkins came to Northeastern partially because of its location in Boston and the proximity to his hometown of Portsmouth.

“I always wanted to be in the city, and thought [NU] was a perfect fit,” Jenkins said.