Feb. 26, 2011

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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- No one has ever won the conference title on the first day of the Big Ten indoor championships.

It’s certainly possible to lose the crown on the meet’s opening day, however.

That’s a circumstance head coach Ed Nuttycombe is confident his Wisconsin men’s track and field team avoided with its performance Saturday inside the University of Illinois Armory.

The 16th-ranked Badgers advanced athletes in each of the eight events that had preliminary rounds Saturday and earned its 25 first-day points by scoring in three others that were contested as finals.

Those 25 points have the Badgers in fourth after the first day of competition, with Ohio State’s opening-day total of 34 points good for the lead in the team race.

“There always some ups and downs, but we took care of the business we needed to take care of today,” Nuttycombe said. “We performed very well across the board, scored points where we needed to score them and set ourselves up for good things Sunday by advancing a good number of athletes through the prelims.”

The biggest boost came in the 3,000 meters, with Wisconsin scoring a 2-3 finish from sophomore Maverick Darling and Reed Connor. The Badgers used a strategy that saw Connor and teammate Alex Brill take the race out quickly while Darling paced the large chase pack.

Once the pack closed, Connor and Darling were left to fight it out with the Indiana duo of Andrew Bayer and Andrew Poore. Eventually, Bayer went to the front as he, Connor and Darling broke away from the field.

Bayer’s winning time of 7:59.68 was enough to hold off Darling, who took second in 8:00.16, and Connor, who filled out the podium with a third-place finish in 8:00.29. Redshirt freshman Drew Shields boosted the Badgers further by scoring with an eighth-place finish in 8:10.65.

“I was extremely proud of the race that Maverick and Reed ran in the 3,000,” Nuttycombe said. “The way Maverick controlled the pace and the way Reed fought to stay up front when the pack caught him were outstanding.”

In the distance medley relay, it was sophomore Rob Finnerty who helped charge the Badgers to a fourth-place finish with his run on the relay’s 1,600-meter anchor leg. Finnerty charged out of a pack of five runners that trailed behind Minnesota anchor Ben Blankenship and helped bring the Badgers home in 9:56.90.

Minnesota took the win in 9:50.58.

UW picked up another fourth-place finish in the long jump, with redshirt freshman Japheth Cato posting a personal-best leap of 24 feet, 5 3/4 inches on his first attempt. Remarkably, Cato did so while balancing his attention between the long jump and the heptathlon high jump.

“You can’t say enough about the focus Jay showed in performing between the two events,” Nuttycombe said. “That’s a lot to ask of an athlete and he performed very well.”

He posted the fourth-best mark in the heptathlon field in the high jump, clearing 6-7 1/2. That performance, along with outstanding marks in the long jump (24-3 1/2) and the 60 meters (7.08 seconds) has Cato third in the heptathlon standings with a first-day, four-event total of 3,183 points.

Cato, who entered as the Big Ten leader in the event and is automatically qualified for the NCAA indoor championships, will finish the final three events of the heptathlon Sunday.

He’ll be joined in the hunt for the title by junior David Grzesiak, who fought back from a poor showing in the long jump to stand fourth after day one at 2,957 points. A throw of 43-9 in the shot put and a clearance at 6-8 3/4 in the high jump allowed Grzesiak – who stood ninth after the long jump -- to fight his way back up the leaderboard.

Strong days from its distance runners and heptathletes came as no surprise to the Badgers. One pleasant surprise, however, was the team’s ability to place three athletes in the final of the 600 meters.

 Senior Zach Beth won his heat in 1:19.45 to automatically advance, but junior Grant Bughman (1:19.09) and freshman Tyler Woloszyk (1:20.29) both raced their way into the final on time.

UW also boasts multiple entries in the mile, with freshman Alex Hatz winning his preliminary heat in 4:05.21 and senior Luke Rucks clocking in at 4:04.82 to advance to the final.

Sophomore Zachary Mellon also raced his way to Sunday by running a time of 1:51.90 to advance to the final. The Badgers’ school record-holder, Mellon holds the Big Ten’s top time in the 800 this season at 1:47.87.

The Badgers also picked up all-important qualifiers in the sprints, with both sophomore Gavin Robertson and junior Kyle Jefferson set for double duty Sunday.

Robertson raced his way into the 60 meters final by clocking a 6.82 in the prelims and then won his heat of the 200 meters in 21.61 to punch a ticket in that event, as well.

Jefferson will join him in the 200 after blazing to a personal-best 21.46 that won his preliminary heat. That performance capped a 2-for-2 day for Jefferson, who also cruised to a heat win in the 400 meters in 48.73 to secure a finals spot in that event.

A total of 13 events will be decided on Sunday, with the Badgers boasting competitors in 11. That sets up a battle for the title that Nuttycombe expects to come down to the wire. A tight race heading into the meet’s final event – the 4x400-meter relay – could be good for the Badgers, who own the league’s No. 2 time in that event this season.

“We’re in a good position, but Sunday is all about showing up and performing on the day, when the meet is on the line,” Nuttycombe said. “It’s dead even in the race for the title, and we need to perform to keep ourselves in that mix.”

The championships resume with the heptathlon 60-meter hurdles at 10:20 a.m. Sunday. Field events get underway with the high jump and triple jump at noon, and racing begins on the track with the 5,000 meters at 1 p.m.