Oct. 1, 2011
• Results | Results 
MADISON, Wis. -- The No. 2-ranked Wisconsin men's cross country team earned its second win of the season Saturday by claiming the team title at Oregon's Bill Dellinger invitational.
The race marked the debut of many veterans on the team, who did not show any signs of early rust in their first race of the season.
Led by junior Reed Connor, five Badgers finished in the top 10, which helped Wisconsin finish with 24 points and run away with the decisive victory. Host and sixth-ranked Oregon finished second with 59 points, Southern Utah third with 104, Idaho fourth with 110 and UC Riverside fifth with 113.
Connor finished the 8-kilometer race in 23 minutes, 18 seconds to earn a second-place finish. Connor knew that this meet meant a lot for building toward the future, and also knows they may be seeing one team in particular again down the road this season.
"It's early in the season," Connor said. "This is getting us ready for the end of the season. We're going to see each other a lot and there's a lot of respect there when we go to each other's meets."
A group of Badgers backed up Connor's performance, sweeping places fourth through seventh. Senior Ryan Collins finished fourth in 23:22, Junior Mohammed fifth in 23:22, senior Elliot Krause sixth in 23:22 and junior Maverick Darling seventh in 23:23.
Sophomore Andrew Shields finished 11th with a time of 24:03 and continued his strong performance so far this season.
Head coach Mick Byrne was pleased with the performance and effort he got from his Badgers Saturday.
"Our top five looked really good," Byrne said. "They controlled the race up front. They didn't do anything crazy and didn't get too excited."
Not only did Cameron Levins of Southern Utah take home the overall win, he also challenged the front runners of UW all day, and provided a nice situational challenge.
"We were running as a pack," Connor said. "Our coach said to go get him. I made a sudden reaction but my team held back. I was just waiting, waiting. We got to the last corner and I just went after him."
While running hard to chase Levins down most of the race, Byrne felt his Badgers didn't get rattled and maintained their control the race.
"They understand what this means as a first race," Byrne said. "They ran very hard but controlled, and that's the key."
Being the first race of the season for many of the veterans, one of the key questions and points of evaluation for Byrne Saturday was how his runners' bodies would respond. Byrne was pleased with what he saw.
"The most important thing was for us to see how their bodies reacted to the hard training of the last eight weeks and they came through with flying colors."
