Prosper Narrowly Misses School Record at Louisville Meet

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The MU men's cross country squad narrowly missed their team goal of breaking the 26-minute barrier for team average Saturday morning at the Greater Louisville Cross Country Classic. However, the Bears team did set a new school record by averaging 26:04.15 for the 8K course versus the topflight competition in the Gold Division race.

Mercer's team likely would have easily breeched the 26-minute team average had it not been for a massive pileup of runners just 250 meters into the race. Among those who went down were several of MU's runners, including hometown favorite Jacob Law. All of Mercer's entrants were able to get up and finish the race, despite some cuts and scrapes, but the delay was enough to take away MU's opportunity at the team average goal for the race.

For the third-straight race, Mercer was led by sophomore sensation Sony Prosper. Prosper ran a personal record time of 25:24.42 and was the 87^th finisher out of 240 entrants.

Prosper's time also virtually equaled the Mercer school 8K record set by Justin Parker in 2003. "Virtually," because Parker's Mercer 8K record is recorded as 25:24 (run at Auburn). However, fractions of a second were not recorded from that meet, which leaves Prosper - technically - 42/100ths of a second behind Parker's time in the record books.

Senior Marc Kushinka also made short work of his personal best, lopping more than 16 full seconds off his previous best at the 8K distance, booking a 25:59.18. Kushinka's effort is just the eighth time in MU history that a Bear has eclipsed the 26-minute barrier and ranks as the eighth-fastest time in school history overall, as well. He finished 143^rd in the race.

Chris Svidesskis was Mercer's third finisher at 26:00.77 and placed 146^th.  Fellow juniors Andrew Weems (26:27.50) and Law (26:28.87) finished in 177^th and 179^th places, respectively.

In addition to Prosper and Kushinka notching personal best efforts, sophomore Kasib Abdullah (27:18.68) hit a PR. Newcomers Josh Pendley (27:06.76) and Jeff Law (27:46.61) – Jacob's younger brother - also bested the 8K times for their embryonic MU careers.