Malachy Schrobilgen won an individual Big Ten title a season ago, but the Wisconsin men’s cross-country team still came up short of their 15th-consecutive Big Ten Championship.
Sunday was a different story for Schrobilgen and the Badgers.
Behind Schrobilgen’s second straight individual first place finish in 23:35, UW won its 15th Big Ten team title in the last 16 years, finishing with 47 points to easily outpace the 77 points of runner-up Michigan. Coincidentally enough, the Badgers’ point total also equaled the number of championships they have now won, as Sunday marked their 47th total team crown in the 100 years the Big Ten has sponsored a conference championship for cross-country.
After losing three key members after the 2012 season, Wisconsin has had to rely on younger runners the last two seasons. That inexperience might have hindered the Badgers a year ago, but the youth came up in a huge way for the Badgers Sunday.
Of the five runners who factored into the scoring for UW, three of them were freshmen. True freshman Morgan McDonald completed the 8-kilomenter course in 23:56, placing 12th overall for the Badgers, while redshirt freshman Carl Hirsch was close behind in 14th (24:04). Another true freshman Joe Hardy rounded out Wisconsin’s top five with his 18th-place finish in a time of 24:09.
But the Badgers also got a big-time performance from one of their oldest runners and a former walk-on in Michael Van Voorhis. Van Voorhis began his collegiate running career as part of the Wisconsin Track Club, but made it onto the cross-country team as a walk-on. Since then, he has become an integral part of the Badgers, and Sunday he finished only seconds behind Schrobilgen to grab second place overall in 23:37.6.
“[Van Voorhis] was a true walk-on and he took full advantage of that opportunity to be a Badger,” head coach Mick Byrne said. “To see him come out today and finish second, that’s amazing. It just shows that if you believe and you want it hard enough, as much as Michael did, anything can happen.”
The one, two individual finish for the Badgers was an important part to the team’s return to the conference crown, and also marked the second time in four years that UW has had the top two places at the meet.
Meanwhile, Schrobilgen became just the fifth Badger to win back-to-back individual Big Ten titles, and the first since Simon Bairu won individual crowns in 2003 and 2005.
With big displays from all its runners, even those who might not have factored into the scoring, the Badgers returned in an impressive way to the top of the Big Ten.
“Just before the race today, we got in the huddle and told the guys to look down at the uniform,” UW head coach Mick Byrne said. “We told them that they have to understand that the name on the uniform means a lot more than us, it represents all the years and traditions of the team.”
The traditions and accolades just continue to grow for the Badgers.
On the women’s side, Wisconsin drastically improved off its seventh place finish from a year ago and placed runner-up to Michigan State with 55 points for its best finish at the conference meet since 2008.
uwbadgers.com contributed to this story.
