Nov. 13, 2010
• Complete Results 
ROCHESTER, Mich. -- The streak lives on for the Wisconsin men’s cross country team, as the Badgers captured their eighth-straight NCAA Great Lakes Regional title in Rochester, Mich., Saturday.
Adding to their collection of Great Lakes crowns, the Badgers now boast 26 in all, in addition to the longest-streak for consecutive titles for the Great Lakes region with eight.
Indiana came in second with 76 points behind Wisconsin’s 32-point effort. The Hoosiers earned second-place honors to automatically advance to the NCAA championship with the Badgers. Coming in at third was Notre Dame with 117 points, and in fourth was Ohio State with 131 team points. Rounding out the top five teams was Michigan State with 148 points.
Leading the charge for the Badgers was sophomore Reed Connor, who claimed second-place overall with a time of 30.28.7 in the 10-kilometer race. The top individual qualifier for the NCAA championship was Cincinnati’s Eric Finan. Also advancing to the NCAA championship are Michigan’s Craig Forys, Notre Dame’s Dan Jackson and Dayton’s Chris Lemon.
After the top-five finishers, the Badgers notched the sixth through ninth individual places. Coming in sixth was sophomore Maverick Darling in 30:31.61, and junior Elliot Krause was right on his heels in 30:31.79 for seventh place.
Sophomore Mohammed Ahmed and senior Landon Peacock took eighth and ninth, respectively, with Ahmed clocking in at 30:31.85 and Peacock in a time of 30:32.02. Junior Phil Thomas finished 23rd-overall as well, rounding out the top-25 finishers.
All of the Badgers’ finishers in the top-25 earned USTFCCCA All-region honors.
After winning the Big Ten championship for the 12th-straight year on Oct. 31, head coach Mick Byrne’s main goal for the NCAA Great Lakes Regional was to move on to the NCAA championships, and the Badgers did just that.
"Our main goal today was to advance to next week’s national championships,” Byrne said. “We felt that if we got all our five scores up front early, we could control the race and keep an eye on how the team race was developing.”
As the race progressed, the Badgers began to break away from the pack and cruised on to what seemed like an easy finish.
"After the 7-kilometer mark we caught the breakaway group and pretty much cruised the last couple of kilometers,” Byrne explained. “Our guys never looked like they were under any real pressure.”
As far as heading to the NCAA championships on Nov. 22, Byrne feels that his runners have the confidence to perform well on their biggest and most competitive stage all year.
"They’re racing with a ton of confidence right now,” Byrne said. “Hopefully they’ll carry this confidence into next week’s NCAA championships.”
UW heads to the NCAA championships Nov. 22, where they will travel to Terre Haute, Indiana’s LaVern Gibson Championships course. The men’s 10-kilometer race is scheduled to begin at 12 p.m. (CT).
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Monique Hughes
UW Athletic Communications
