Personal Bests Fall as Trojans Finish Eighth at Gans Creek Classic

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Five of the top seven Taylor men's cross country runners posted personal records as sixth-ranked TU raced to an eighth-place finish out of 26 teams on Friday at the Mizzou Gans Creek Classic.

Luke Harber led the charge for the Trojans, notching his first sub-25:00.0 time with a 24:59.9 that placed him 32nd out of 389 competitors.

Nathan Burns recorded the other top-50 individual finish for Taylor with his 25:12.1.

Behind Burns, Joel Mumaw, Alex Ortiz, Zach McWatters and Jordan Burden all had personal-best finishes inside the top 140 runners. Ryan Hanak completed TU's top seven, taking fourth on the team and 66th overall with a 25:22.2.

Taylor finished with 212 points, or one point better than No. 13 Lewis-Clark in a loaded field that included plenty of upper-level NCAA and NAIA competition. The Trojans' team time of 2:06:35.30 kept them in the mix with Crossroads League competitors, No. 17 Spring Arbor and No. 7 Indiana Wesleyan, who took fourth and fifth overall, respectively.

"Our conference is absolutely the strongest conference in the NAIA," head coach Quinn White said. "Everybody respects each other very well, and we know right now you're just trying to feel things out … and we found a lot of things that we want to make some changes, and the first one is we've got to be careful with how we (start the race). … We have to be hungry to go for victories here, so this is just part of the process."

White feels that both the travel required for this meet and experiencing the course itself could pay dividends down the line.

"Just the chance to have an overnight, or a couple overnights and experience that … just getting used to it, and of course getting on this course which is the (course at NAIA Nationals). It gives the athletes an opportunity to get a good feel for the course, to learn from it, to learn from the mistakes we made and to learn from the positive things and keep those rolling," said White.

No. 6 Taylor is back in action when it hosts the Ray Bullock Invitational at the Taylor Cross Country Farm on Oct. 11.