Team Results
| | 1. | Syracuse | 85 | | 2. | Iona | 154 | | 3. | Wisconsin | 176 | | 4. | Portland | 211 | | 5. | Stanford | 220 | | |
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Oct. 17, 2014
MADISON, Wis. --The No. 9 Wisconsin men’s cross country team ran Badger tough at the sixth annual Wisconsin adidas Invitational.
“I said at the press conference on Monday, ‘If we get in the top five or six, it’s going to be a great job,’” Director of Cross Country and Track & Field
Mick Byrne said. “To walk out of here in third place with a ton of points, that’s awesome.”
The Badgers finished third with an impressive team score of 176 points on the Zimmer Championship Course.
| Fast Facts | | •UW finishes third overall with team score of 176 | | •Michael Van Voorhis leads UW, finishing 13th overall | | •Stanford's Maxim Korolev wins individual title in 23:43 | |
Leading the Cardinal and White amidst one of the nation’s most competitive pre-championship seasons was senior
Michael Van Voorhis, as the field featured 15 of the top 20 teams including six of the top ten teams. “We put two 18-year-olds out there,
Joe Hardy and
Morgan McDonald, (and) both of those guys did an incredible job.” Byrne said. “
Michael Van Voorhis did a great job. He was our first finisher.”
“It is a pretty windy day out here,” Van Voorhis said. “We went out pretty slow through about four or five kilometers. I found myself in the top half and I just kind of went for it.”
The conditions of the race were less than favorable with 20-plus mile-per-hour winds.
“The race was very slow early on and became very tactical,” Byrne said. “At some stage out there, beyond four or five kilometers, they started to really, really rip it.”
Crossing the finish line first was Stanford’s Maxim Korolev with a time of 23 minutes, 43 seconds. Rounding out the top five finishers were Northern Arizona’s Futsom Zienasellassie in 23:47, Washington’s Aaron Nelson in 23:51, Portland’s Scott Fauble in 23:53 and Northern Arizona’s Matt McElroy in 23:54.
Overall, Syracuse won the team title with a score of 85 points. Syracuse’s top three finishers, Martin Hehir, Justyn Knight and Max Straneva, placed in the top 20. In second place was Iona with a team score of 154 points, followed by Wisconsin with 176 points, Portland with 211 points and Stanford with 220 points.
“I am really happy,” Van Voorhis said. “We beat a couple of the top ranked teams. I think we arrived on a big stage here today.” The Badgers did indeed arrive, and on a big stage. Van Voorhis finished 19 seconds after Korolev with a time of 24:02 as the first finisher for UW and 17th overall. Schrobilgen finished second for Wisconsin and 20th overall with a time of 24:07. Schrobilgen was followed by freshmen Hardy in 37th at 24:14 and McDonald in 42nd at 24:17. Rounding out the Badgers top five was
Carl Hirsch, who placed 64th overall in 24:25.
“Joe and Morgan both did really well today,” Van Voorhis said. “I thought they both had a great debut today. This is a different beast than the 5K that they run in high school. I thought they adjusted pretty well.” “Hardy and McDonald did a great job—absolutely fantastic job,” Byrne said. “You could be in the top 50 out there and still think that you are not having a good day. I think there was a little bit of that. These guys are used to being up front, whether it was in high school or in Morgan’s case some international races. Back there in 30th or 40th place, it can play a mind job on you. “For them, it was how they handle the pressure of running in a huge crowd like that. They did a great job with that.”
With the 2014 Big Ten Cross Country Championships two weeks away, Byrne and the Badgers are looking forward to the start to championship season.
“It’s a different race than adidas,” Byrne said. “The Big Ten meet is only a hundred people in that race. Every minute you can see who is with you or who is ahead of you. Our goal is to go back there to win the trophy back.
“We have a battle ahead but we are going to enjoy this one and recover from this great meet that these guys had today.”
“That is what we train for, Big Ten and beyond,” Van Voorhis said. “I think some of the guys who may not have had their best race here today, might be motivated by that. I am certainly motivated by finishing with some top dogs in the country. I think we are in good shape. We are coming off some big months here so we will start rationing it down in the coming weeks.”
