Badgers Set for Big Ten Championship
October 27, 2005 | Men's Cross Country
The University of Wisconsin men's cross country team heads to Minneapolis for the 2005 Big Ten Championship Sunday. The No. 2-ranked Badgers will run at 11:30 a.m. on the Les Bolstad Golf Course.
The Badgers look to extend their Big Ten title streak to seven this weekend. In 2004, Wisconsin swept the top three spots to score 23 points and won the Championship by a Big Ten record 81 points. Senior Simon Bairu captured his second consecutive individual title when he crossed the finish line with a time of 23:45. Junior Chris Solinsky followed Bairu in second with a time of 23:55 while then-senior Matt Tegenkemp came in third at 23:57. Besides sweeping the top three spots, Bairu, Solinsky and Tegenkemp also earned first-team All-Big Ten honors.
Three other Badgers finished in the top 20 including then-senior Josh Spiker's sixth-place finish (24:18), senior Bobby Lockhart's 11th-place finish (24:34) and junior Tim Nelson's 13th-place finish (24:36). Spiker also earned first-team All-Big Ten honors while Lockhart and Nelson tabbed second-team All-Big Ten recognition.
A Badger runner has also won the individual championship six times in the last seven years. Besides last season's title, Bairu also won in 2003 with a time of 23:58. Tegenkemp won the title in 2002 with a time of 24:01.9 while Jason Vanderhoof won in 2000 with a similar time of 24:01. Matt Downin started the UW streak by winning back-to-back titles in 1998 and 1999.
The Wisconsin women's team will also run in its Big Ten Championship on Sunday, with its race beginning at 10:30 a.m. on the same course.
For complete results of the 2005 Big Ten Cross Country Championships, check back to uwbadgers.com.
