Badgers back to No. 1
November 02, 2005 | Men's Cross Country
The Wisconsin men's cross country team returned to the No. 1 spot of the MONDO NCAA Division I Men's Cross Country poll released Tuesday. The Badgers received 12 first-place votes while Arkansas dropped down to No. 2 with four first-place votes. Colorado remained in the No. 3 spot and received no first-place votes.
This is the fourth time this season the Badgers have been ranked No. 1. After maintaining a No. 1 ranking for all of the 2004 season, Wisconsin held the top spot for the first three polls of 2005. The Badgers then dropped to No. 2 in the Oct. 5 poll following a fifth-place finish at the Notre Dame Invitational on Sept. 30. UW then remained in the No. 2 spot for the Oct. 18 poll after winning its third-straight Jim Drews Invitational Title.
The rest of the top five stayed the same with Stanford at No. 4 and Notre Dame at No. 5. Brigham Young also remained in the No. 6 spot while Georgetown moved up from No. 9 to No. 7 and UTEP from No. 10 to No. 8. To round out the top 10, Arizona dropped from No. 7 to No. 9 while Texas moved up from No. 12 to No. 10.
The Badgers are coming of their seventh-straight Big Ten Championship last Sunday in Minneapolis, Minn. The team scored a Big Ten record 16 points, swept the top four spots and placed four more runners in the top 10. Senior Simon Bairu ran for his third consecutive individual title with a time of 23:31.73. The Badgers also tallied another Big Ten record 85-point margin of victory over second-place Ohio State. The Buckeyes scored 101 points at the Championship.
Ohio State's second-place finish at the Big Ten Championship helped them leap from No. 26 in the Oct. 18 poll to No. 15 in Tuesday's poll. Minnesota, who finished a close third with 102 points at the Championship, also jumped from No. 23 to No. 18 in the polls. Three other Big Ten teams were ranked including Iowa (No. 20), Michigan (No. 23) and Indiana (No. 25).
Wisconsin now looks to qualify for its 34th consecutive NCAA Championship as it heads to the Great Lakes Regional, Saturday, Nov. 12. The race starts at 11:00 a.m. on the Indiana University Golf Course in Bloomington, Ind. The Badgers have won 20 Great Lakes Regional titles and are the reigning champions.
