The Wisconsin men's cross country team won their sixth straight NCAA Great Lakes Regional championship in Bloomington, Ind. Saturday, but this year they share the title with Michigan.
Wisconsin and Michigan tied with 68 points each and earned automatic spots at the NCAA National Championship.
Although you like to win [exclusively], it's a championship event, but it's far from being the important one,"" head coach Jerry Schumacher said. ""Sure, it would have been nice to pick up one [point] somewhere though.""
Saturday marked the 36th straight time Wisconsin qualified for nationals, and UW is the only team to have qualified every year since regional meets began in 1972.
Wisconsin did this without Stu Eagon and Andrew Lacy, the No. 2 and No. 3 runners from the Big Ten Championships.
Junior Matt Withrow took second behind Notre Dame's Patrick Smyth and covered the 10,000-meter course - about 6.2 miles - in 30 minutes, 38 seconds. It was the first time this season he didn't take home the individual title.
Also cracking the top 10 were junior Christian Wagner, who placed ninth in 30:59, and sophomore Brandon Bethke, who ran 31:03 for 10th.
Redshirt freshman Landon Peacock took 17th overall, covering the course in 31:18. Withrow, Wagner, Bethke and Peacock each earned all-region honors.
Fellow freshman Jack Bolas ran 31:44 for 30th to round out Badger scoring.
Sophomores Ryan Gasper and Craig Miller also competed for UW, and placed 33rd and 43rd in 31:48 and 31:58, respectively.
Last year the men's team carried momentum from their regional win to place second at the NCAAs.
""The ultimate goal is to qualify as easy as possible and [be as] relaxed as possible so that you can better prepare yourself for the national championship,"" Schumacher said.
Women's Recap
The women's team is heading to the NCAA Championship for the third year in row despite racing without two top-five runners at the Great Lakes Regional Saturday. They finished third overall, which earned them an at-large qualifying bid to nationals.
Michigan State won the region with 60 points, three ahead of Michigan. Wisconsin scored 93 points, 99 fewer points than fourth place Marquette. Nicole Edwards of Michigan won individually, and covered the 6000-meter course in 20 minutes, 30 seconds.
According to head coach Jim Stintzi, the team ""had a pretty good idea"" they qualified to nationals, based on the formula used to determine which teams make it at-large.
Redshirt freshman Cassie Hintz was diagnosed with mononucleosis shortly after the Big Tens and head coach Jim Stintzi decided to rest senior Ann Detmer, who had an IT-band problem.
Sophomore Hanna Grinaker continued her stellar season with fourth place overall, running 20:51.
Junior Gwen Jorgensen finished 11th in 21:25, and also placing in the top 20 was freshman Leah Coyle, who took 19th in 21:37. Stintzi said Coyle had the best race of her career.
Grinaker, Hintz and Coyle made the Great Lakes All-Region team.
Senior Amanda Ganser was the fourth Badger to finish, running 21:54.3 for 29th overall. Three-tenths of a second behind Ganser at 21:54.6 was sophomore Alicia Pabich, UW's final scorer.
In addition, junior Sarah Hurley took 36th overall in 22:01 and senior Kait Hurley finished 60th in 22:33.
""I was really pleased because we had some people that really stepped up, and didn't exactly fill in those shoes, but came close to it,"" Stintzi said.
