With the Big Ten Championships only one week away, it would seem very easy for the Wisconsin track teams to overlook the last event of the regular season.
That will not be a problem for the Badgers, however, according to head coach Ed Nuttycombe. The team will get the rare chance to run on home turf this weekend as they compete in the Wisconsin Twilight Invitational at the McClimon Memorial Track/Soccer Complex.
""We're always excited. We don't have a whole lot of opportunities to compete at home,"" Nuttycombe said. ""We're looking forward to the weekend and our final preparation for the Big Ten Championship.""
After the Badgers wrap up the regular season in Madison, their focus will shift to the Big Ten Championships, which will be held at Ohio State May 15-17.
Despite dominating the conference in the past, winning 10 of the last 14 outdoor Big Ten titles, Wisconsin will enter the meet as a relative long shot to take first. The Badgers lost a lot of skill and experience coming into this year, leaving Nuttycombe and his staff with a team that, although talented, is very young. That makes for a bright future and big expectations down the road, but the Badgers are focused on what they have got right now.
""We are going to be substantially better next year, but right now we want to take care of this year and do the best we can team-wise and compete like champions,"" he said.
As Nuttycombe points out, just because the team suffered heavy losses after last season and has not dominated the competition this year like it has previously, does not mean that the Badgers are without talented athletes and standout performances.
""There are a number of athletes who are competing well, we just might not have the mass numbers that we've had in the past,"" he said.
Among those athletes that have stepped up this year are junior runners Jack Bolas and Craig Miller and freshman pole-vaulter Mickey DeFilippo. Bolas and Miller turned in two of the five fastest 1500m times in school history at the Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford last weekend. The race, which Bolas and Miller finished in 3:37.64 and 3:37.81, respectively, featured some of the fastest times ever run by collegiate athletes. DeFilippo nearly set a school record for pole vaulting this weekend but saw the bar wobble around just enough to fall down. Still, the freshman has shown significant improvement since the beginning of the year.
""I wanted [DeFilippo] to make it because he has been vaulting really, really well and is making some big strides,"" Nuttycombe said.
As the Badgers close out the regular season this weekend and move forward into the Big Ten Championship and NCAA Regionals, they will do so without being in the alpha-dog position that has become expected in Madison. However, look for Wisconsin to make some noise and remind the rest of the conference that they are talented, hard-working and itching to get back to the top.
