The 13th annual Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational, hosted by the Wisconsin Badgers, featured some of the top runners and teams in the 2022 NCAA cross country field. The meet took place at Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course at University Ridge Golf Course in Madison, Wisconsin.
New Mexico looked to defend their women’s title from last year, while Iowa State attempted to do the same on the men’s side.
Eight of the top 10 women’s teams in the nation competed at the Nuttycombe Invite on Friday, highlighted by NC State (1), New Mexico (2) and Northern Arizona (4). On the other hand, the men had 19 of the top 30 squads take the course, including the Badgers who were ranked sixth.
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After both the Men’s and Women’s “B” races were completed, the championship races started, beginning with the Women’s 6K.
UW women’s team, ranked 28 in the nation, hoped to follow up a victory at the Loyola Lakefront Invitational, two weeks prior to Nuttycombe, with another high quality performance on Friday.
Katelyn Tuohy of North Carolina State stole the show with a blazing time, covering 3.73 miles in 19:44 minutes. The individual champion led NC State to a team championship, as they scored 80 points and won the tiebreaker over New Mexico.
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Shea Ruhly was the leader for Wisconsin, as she made up some ground on the competition after a slow start. After moving up 83 spots between the 2K and 4K mark, Ruhly placed 54th with a time of 20:33.
The rest of the scoring Badgers finished strong, as Samantha Stieve, Victoria Heiligenthal, Lucinda Crouch and Emma Watcke rounded out the top five scorers. The group finished 14th out of 36 teams.
“You look at the quality of teams that were in this meet, it’s just unbelievable, 17 out of the top 20 teams,” Wisconsin Director of Cross Country Mick Byrne said. “There were opportunities out there, and you can get caught up in that 14th place, but you look at the number of great teams that we beat, and we seized an opportunity to obviously grab some at-large points and that’s huge for us as we head into the championship part of the season.”
Within the competition, the women were able to defeat every Big Ten foe racing on Friday. Those teams included Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State and Minnesota. Byrne still does not want to overlook the competition at the Big Ten Championships in two weeks.
“Going into the Big Ten meet is a completely different beast, it’s more head-to-head competition. It’s what our sport is all about,” Byrne said. “Michigan and Michigan State, who we beat today, they aren’t going to give us an inch. We have to go out and execute in two weeks.”
On the other hand, the men’s team had high expectations heading into the home meet, looking to build on a 4th place finish at last year’s event. Earlier this season, the group ran at the Roy Griak Invitational and took first place.
It was the Bob Liking show on Friday, as the sophomore had one of the fastest runs in the history of racing at Nuttycombe. Liking finished 4th place overall for the second straight season at this meet, running a 23:14 — three seconds faster than former Wisconsin runner and Olympian Morgan McDonald’s winning time of 23:17 in 2018.
“Try to hang on as long as possible,” Liking said regarding his strategy during the race. “There was a brief moment of insanity where I thought that I could win, and then they just all effortlessly went by. It was still a good day, and I was happy to race. It was fun to be a part of.”
Jack Meijer and Charlie Wheeler followed, each completing their 8Ks with a time of 23:40. Evan Bishop and Rowan Ellenberg finalized the top five Badgers, each running a 23:53. Shuaib Aljabaly was the sixth runner for Wisconsin, running a 24:02. The team placed 7th overall, down three spots from last year.
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“It was a very weird race. We had some team goals going in, and we didn’t really meet them,” Liking said. “It’s still pretty early into the season, so we weren’t really looking too deep into it.”
Ky Robinson of Stanford and Nico Young of Northern Arizona — two of the top runners in the country — took first (23:09) and second (23:10) place respectively. Stanford went on to win the team championship with a combined score of 54 points.
Next Friday, the Badgers travel to Champaign, Illinois to compete in the Illinois Open as one last tune-up before their postseason begins. Two weeks from now, the Badgers head to Ann Arbor, Michigan for the Big Ten Championships. Wisconsin comes into the meet with high expectations.
“We want to win,” Byrne said. “On the men’s side, we want to defend our Big Ten Title. And for the women, second last year, why not be first?”
