After a successful regular season, the Wisconsin Badgers Cross Country teams have an opportunity to make a run at a National Championship. But first, they had to travel to Terre Haute, Indiana, to compete in the NCAA Great Lakes Regional, hosted by Indiana State University.
The men entered the race as the projected number one overall team coming off of their 53rd Big Ten Championship in program history. They jumped Notre Dame, who struggled in their race last weekend at the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship.
On the other hand, the women came into the race as the fifth-best squad in the 33-team field. Wisconsin needed another quality performance in order to have a shot at making the NCAA Championships.
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The women were the first race of the day, competing against some of the top teams in the nation, including Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State and Toledo. Aside from the first five runners, the top pack of competitors remained very close together for the entirety of the race, as placement was only separated by tenths of a second.
Samantha Stieve led the way for Wisconsin at the regionals, running her 6K in 20:15, cutting off 17 seconds from her performance two weeks ago at the Big Ten Championship. Teammate Shea Ruhly followed in 14th place, only finishing three seconds behind Stieve. Lucinda Crouch was able to push her way to 20th place, giving the Badgers three all-region runners.
Following those two runners was Victoria Heiligenthal and Alexa Westley, scoring 129 points as a team. Both runners were able to make pushes to move up in the race after the 4K mark, allowing the Badgers to stride ahead of other teams, such as Toledo, who was a lock to make it to the championship weekend.
Wisconsin placed fifth as predicted, and awaited their fate on Saturday afternoon, where the NCAA had their selection show. The committee determined that Wisconsin was one of the top 13 teams that didn’t place in the top two of their regional, giving them an at-large bid for the NCAA Championship.
On the men’s side, Wisconsin continued to stay hot as a team, placing first in the Great Lakes Regional meet.
The six-man combination of Evan Bishop, Rowen Ellenberg, Jackson Sharp, Charlie Wheeler, Jack Meijer and Bob Liking finished in that order on Friday. No competitors finished in between these six runners, the key to Wisconsin’s first-place finish.
Places eight through 13 all went to the Badgers Friday, as each of the runners ran their 10K’s in 30:07 or 30:08 minutes. There was a slim 0.8 second spread between the first Badger finisher, Evan Bishop, and the last, Bob Liking.
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That flawless team run gave Wisconsin a team score of 50 points. Among the 29 teams competing in Indiana on Friday, the next-closest team was Notre Dame at 61.
With their first place finish, the Badgers claimed their automatic bid to the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Notre Dame was the second team that earned an automatic bid.
The men’s team has now placed first in four of their meets this season, speaking to the dominance of this year’s group.
The Badgers have one more chance in 2022 to prove that they deserve to be at the top of the cross country hierarchy. The group has very specific goals going into the meet.
Eighteen automatic qualifiers, plus the 13 teams that earned at-large bids, will be competing for a national championship at the Greiner Family Oklahoma State University Cross Country Course. The top four individuals from each regional meet whose teams did not make it to the championship will also be racing on Saturday.
Northern Arizona has won five out of the last six championships, and the Wisconsin men’s team hasn’t brought home a title since the 2011 season. As for the women, the team is searching for their first national championship since the 1985 season, where they repeated for the second straight year under former head coach Peter Tegen.
It is an important weekend for the Badgers as they look to establish themselves on top of the collegiate cross country circuit.
