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October 2, 2010
Bears Cross Country Runs Like Thoroughbreds in Kentucky
Men's Results | Women's Results
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Some "home cooking" proved to be a winning recipe for the top finishers on Mercer University's cross country teams Saturday at the Greater Louisville Classic at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer Park. The women's team was seventh of 34 teams in the "Blue Division" race, while the men were 18th.
Jacob Law and Kacie Niemann – both from nearby Crestwood, Ky. – led their Bears' teammates in their respective races. And well they should have, since both were quite familiar with the course because it was the same one used by their high school teams at South Oldham.
Mercer's women's team set a new school record for average time. MU's scoring five averaged 19:31.08. The run lopped nearly a full second off of the previous best team average of 19:32.0 set in 2005 at the Atlantic Sun Conference meet in Buies Creek, S.C.
The Mercer men missed the men's team average by an average of just three seconds.
"I was very, very pleased with the efforts of both teams," said MU head coach Ryan Bailey. "Both squads ran extremely well. We've had a lot of adjustments in our order of finish; it's interesting to see what's going on. We are nowhere near our top capacity yet as a team.
"As I said in my pre-season predictions, I believe this is the best collection of runners ever assembled at Mercer."
Considering that if you combine the top five men's finishers and top five women's placers, Bailey's teams had no seniors among the group, it's hard to argue that point. The MU men had a junior, a freshman and three sophomores in its scoring group, while the women's quintet was comprised of a junior, sophomore and three frosh.
For Law, the ascension to the spot as the Bears' top runner in a meet has been a work in progress and may signal a return to the form which earned him all-conference recognition as a freshman in 2009. In his first meet of 2010, Law finished fifth among the Bears' runners at Georgia and improved to MU's third finisher two weeks ago at the Mercer RunFit Sports Invitational.
This week at the Greater Louisville Classic, Law restored order and finished the 8K course in a time of 26:15.30 and was 63rd out of 328 runners overall. Law led a pack of four Mercer harriers all crossing the line within 33 seconds of each other.
Fellow sophomore Chris Svidesskis was Mercer's second finisher and was 76th overall in a time of 26:22.60. Andrew Weems was the team's third finisher (26:33.40) and freshman Sony Prosper was the No. 4 Mercer finisher (112th overall) at 26:47.60.
Other finishers for Mercer's men's squad included Marc Kushinka (27:14.90), Geremy Skeen (27:39.40), Kasim Abdullah (28:43.20) and Nick Huguenard (28:52.1).
On the women's 5K course, Niemann's return to her old Kentucky home course yielded her first sub-19 minute time of the year. Niemann finished 20th overall – out of 285 runners – in a time of 18:55.15. She led the MU team for the second-consecutive meet, after winning the RunFit Sports Invitational two weeks ago.
Mercer's fabulous freshman trio of Linda Batna, Sammy Woller and Lena Hamvas – were the Nos. 2-4 finishers among women's roster. Batna finished the race at 19:13.06 (38th), with Woller at 19:30.43 (59th) and Hamvas at 19:35.93 (68th).
Rounding out the Bears' squad finishes were Christina Kivi (20:20.80), Clara Densmore (20:27.32), Kylen Hughes (20:48.03) and Kassie Knapper (21:08.43).
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