The Wisconsin men's distance medley relay placed third, and 5,000-meter runner Katrina Rundhaug placed fifth, earning All-American honors along with distance runners Ann Detmer and Brandon Bethke at the NCAA Indoor Championships March 14 and 15.
Sophomore Craig Miller opened the 1,200-meter leg of the DMR in 2 minutes 56 seconds, putting UW in sixth place. James Groce moved the Badgers up to fourth after his 47.52 seconds 400 meter leg, and freshman Evan Jager got the relay in second after his 1:49 800 meter effort. Jack Bolas anchored the mile leg in 4:00 and was passed by Arizona State's miler to finish third for a cumulative effort of 9:33.83.
Texas, armed with mile champion Leonel Manzano and runner-up Jake Morse, won the distance medley in 9:32.04.
Sophomore Brandon Bethke took ninth and missed placing by a half second in the 3,000 meters, running 8:06.63. It turned into a kickers' race after the 16-person field stuck together through 2,000 meters, but Bethke didn't have enough steam to hang with the leaders.
Bethke closed the final kilometer in 2:31, while Arizona State's Kyle Alcorn went 2:26 to win the race in 8:00.
Senior Katrina Rundhaug earned her third All-American honor after placing fifth in the 5,000-meter race with a 16:05.02. She stuck near the chase pack and was in fourth for most of the race until Michigan State's Nicole Bush caught her in the final 400 meters.
Texas Tech's Sally Kipyego led from the gun to win in the race in 15:31, over 20 seconds ahead of second place.
With a slew of runners right on her heels, senior Ann Detmer led the first half of the mile, splitting 2:19 at 800 meters. She was second place with 400 meters to go, but faded to eighth by the finish after running 4:44.79 to add a point to UW's team score.
Hannah England of Florida State won the mile in 4:35.30 with Michigan's Nicole Edwards close behind at 4:35.74. Detmer ran 4:43.23 in the mile prelims to be the ninth of 10 qualifiers.
The women's distance medley relay placed 12th at the NCAAs after going 11:34.64. Gwen Jorgensen, Nicole Slaby and Carly Ducharme got UW three seconds out of scoring in 11th place by the time Detmer got the baton, but Detmer mustered only a 4:59 for her second of three mile races for the weekend. Tennessee won the relay in 11:01.
The men's team tied for 38th place with six points and the women tied for 39th place with five points. Arizona State won both the men's and women's team titles.
The men's team kicked off the outdoor season last weekend at the Clemson Relays March 21 and 22, winning five events against a small field including Minnesota.
For individual events, Nate Larkin won the 110-meter hurdles in 14.36 seconds, Eric Hatchel won the 1,500 meters in 4:02.24 and Rayme Mackinson jumped 23 feet 10 1'4 inches to clinch a UW win in the long jump.
The 4x400 meter relay team of Groce, Quinn Evans, Luke Hoenecke and Andrew Milenkovski ran 3:11.67 to win. Wisconsin's final victory came from the 4x800 meter relay team of Luke Rucks, Steven Ludwig, Joe Pierre and Zach Beth, who went 7:48.53.
- uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.
