Wisconsin heads into this week's NCAA Great Lakes Regional at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course with some momentum after recording a fifth-place finish at the 2015 Big Ten Cross Country Championship.

A big part of that push comes from Shaelyn Sorensen, who paced the Badgers for the fifth time in as many races this year with her seventh-place finish at the conference meet. She collected first-team All-Big Ten honors and was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year for her efforts, which helped the Badgers to a top-five team finish.

"Shaelyn has been one of our toughest athletes this season," UW Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Mick Byrne said. "She took advantage of her redshirt season last year and has really shined while many of our big guns have been sidelined."

UW entered the season expecting big things from a pair of veterans in Sarah Disanza, last year's NCAA cross country runner-up, and Molly Hanson, a two-time second-team All-American on the track. They led Wisconsin to a 10th-place finish at last year's NCAA championship but ended up taking redshirts this season due to injuries.

"We made the decision once Molly got hurt to not rush Sarah back," Byrne said. "Sarah, who battled injuries last track season, had a great summer but towards the end of the summer she ran into some issues. We felt during September we were rushing her coming back.

"Once Molly came out in October, we decided to slow down Sarah's recovery and redshirt her because she hadn't redshirted yet.

"Looking forward to the future when you put those girls in there, next year we have a pretty good team. So every decision we made is for the future."

Despite not having the services of Hanson, Disanza or heralded freshman Amy Davis, the Badgers put together a solid effort at the Big Ten meet and even bested a ranked opponent in then-No. 30 Purdue thanks to the likes of Sorensen, Erin Wagner, Michelle Lee and Jamie Shannon.

"Our team at Big Tens did the best that they could," Byrne said. "We asked them to fight. We asked them to be competitive. We asked them to run with heart and courage, and they did."

The Badgers will be looking for more of the same when they toe the line Friday on their home course.