SPORTS
Relay Team leads Badgers into NCAA’s
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Friday, March 8, 2002
This weekend Wisconsin is trying to get it done.
Seven members of the UW track team will be running toward the highest acclaim in the nation when they compete in the NCAA indoor championships in Fayetteville, Ark., this weekend.
Isaiah Festa, Jabari Pride, Dan Murray, Josh Spiker, Matt Tegenkamp, Adam Wallace and Jon Mungen have all made the NCAA Indoor Championship by breaking the provisional time in their respective disciplines.
Matt Tegenkamp will enter the 3,000-meter event seeded seventh after he qualified for the national meet with a second place time of 7:57.08 during the Iowa State Classic in early February. Earlier this week Tegenkamp became the third men’s athlete to be named the Big Ten indoor track and field athlete of the year.
Tegenkamp finished first in the 3,000-meter event at the Big Ten championships before the meet was cancelled due to the death of Penn State pole-vaulter Kevin Dare. Tegenkamp broke the 3,000-meter school record with his time in Iowa and has improved upon his freshman of the year performance last year.
Senior distance runner Adam Wallace is one of only two UW athletes to qualify for two events at the indoor championship. Wallace may run alongside Tegenkamp in the 3,000 meters, and has an eighth-place ranking in the 5,000-meter event. Wallace will be attempting to add to his 2000 cross country all-American honor with an indoor all-American honor this year.
Junior hurdler Jon Mungen will be the only short-distance runner representing UW at this weekend’s championship. He will compete in the 60-meter hurdles, an event he has won three times this season. His personal best time of 7.81 ranks him tied for13th in the nation.
With the limelight of a NCAA championship undoubtedly comes the pressure to perform. With four men running on the DMR team, if one man falters he may dash the dreams of three others. At the same time, if one man doesn’t perform at the top of his game the others may bring him up.
“I feel like the pressure is spread out because you can rely on your teammates to help you,” said Murray. “We’re all coming together and doing our best. We’re all about (being) equal.”
Being an all-American seems to be what each of these seven athletes is striving for. To be an all-American would mean that these men have performed at the top level in the country, and they would have met the expectations of themselves. “(Being all-American) was one of my biggest goals going into the season,” said Murray. “I’ll see if I can get it done”.
Getting it done is what this weekend is all about for the men’s indoor track team, as the members try to add to UW’s six individual NCAA championships and its first in nearly five years.
