Mortimer sets mark, wins meet at Kansas

Wolverines defeat Kenyans for 1st place

For the Michigan men's cross country team, nothing matters more than winning the Big Ten and NCAA championships at the end of the season.

The rest of the meets might as well be considered a tune-up for the all-important season culmination. There's no real reason a runner couldn't dog it during the regular season, saving his energy for a final all-or-nothing performance.

Tell that to John Mortimer.

Mortimer

Mortimer led Michigan to victory Saturday in its first scored meet of the season, the Jayhawk Invitational in Lawrence, Kan.

And he led them in a big way, finishing first overall in the 8,000-meter race with a course-record time of 25:19. Michigan won the meet with 30 points.

"The course was pretty difficult," Mortimer said. "I had a good summer of training and kept fairly sharp with a few races, just getting in the competitive mode. It just kind of came out."

The team closest to Michigan was Butler (Kan.) Community College with 37 points. Kansas State came in third with a whopping 116 points, while host Kansas placed fourth in team scoring with 126.

"I'm very happy," Michigan coach Ron Warhurst said. "That was a great way to start the season. Butler County beat Arkansas, the No. 2 team in the country last week, so we did very well."

Facing Butler was definitely a surprise for Michigan - not because Butler ran so well, but because the community college actually showed up.

Michigan had expected a dearth of competition at the Jayhawk, not a team that could run with powerhouse Arkansas.

But wait a minute, a community college? Competing with Michigan and Arkansas?

NAIA schools lack the eligibility restrictions of NCAA institutions, meaning the Wolverines weren't exactly running against their peers.

"They actually have about five Kenyans on their team," Mortimer said. "There's a lot of shaky stuff going on there. There's no age limits, no recruiting violations - they can pretty much do anything.

"Those guys are like 28 and 29 years old."

Mortimer didn't just gain valuable international experience at the Jayhawk meet. Kansas' course is also designated as the site of the 1998 NCAAs.

Considering that Mortimer broke the course record, he should be in pretty good shape for 1998, right? Wrong.

"I'm going to be redshirting that year probably," Mortimer said. "Then I can come back and run my fifth year. I'd like to think that I'd be better as a fifth year than a fourth year, just out of years of improvement."

Mortimer wasn't the only Wolverine to turn in a stellar performance.

Senior Kevin Sullivan placed third in the invitational with a time of 25:38. Sullivan was only seven seconds behind Butler's Noah Lagat, who came in second overall.

"I was pleased, but I wasn't really satisfied with my performance," Sullivan said. "I wasn't aggressive in the middle of the race, but I made the effort to be competitive."

Michigan's third finisher was junior Todd Snyder, who placed fifth with a time of 26:06. The Wolverines' top five was rounded out by Steve Lawrence and Don McLaughlin, who finished ninth and 12th, respectively.

Even Michigan's sixth and seventh finishers - who do not actually count towards the team score - had dominant performances.

Michigan's Mike Wisniewski and Jay Cantin placed 19th and 22nd, respectively. That may not seem impressive compared to the races turned in by the others, but consider that the overall field consisted of at least 50 runners.

Cantin and Wisniewski would have been the top performers on almost any team besides Michigan.

"Everyone ran really well," Sullivan said. "The front guys ran well, and the guys coming up in the non-scoring positions ran really well, too.

"It was a really good opening meet for us."

09-15-97