Badgers wrap seasons on high note at NCAAs

BY AJ HARRISON
UW Athletic Communications

MADISON, Wis. — Last year was one to forget for the Wisconsin cross country programs. For the first time in school history, neither the UW men's or women's team qualified for the NCAA championship.

This year? The Badgers clawed back on to the national scene. This fall saw the UW men win the Big Ten for the 48th time, the NCAA Great Lakes Region for the 30th time and finish eighth at Saturday's NCAA championship, while the women finished third in the regional and 14th at the national meet.

For the Wisconsin men, it marked the 47th time the school has finished in the top 10 at the NCAA championship.

"When you're here at the University of Wisconsin, there's a huge expectation and we take that personal," UW Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Mick Byrne said. "They know more than anyone else what it means to be a Badger and the expectation. They feel that. They embrace it. They enjoy it. Today proved that, as we were probably one guy off of possibly getting a podium spot. Go back 12 months ago and people had written us off. They'd written the program off. A lot of people close to the program abandoned the ship and there were a lot of bad things said about these guys.

"But our guys stuck with the process, stuck with the plan, believed in each other, got after it day in and day out and today's result showed that our process worked."

The Badgers had a pair of All-Americans in Morgan McDonald and Malachy Schrobilgen, finishing seventh and 25th respectively.
McDonald, this year's Big Ten champion, earned the best individual finish by a Badger since Mohammed Ahmed was fifth at the 2011 NCAA Cross Country Championship.

"Looking back at it now, I'm really happy with the race and with the whole season," McDonald said. "I can't complain too much. I think as a team and individually we took some really good steps forward this season and we learned a lot. But we still have a lot to work on for next year."

A two-time Big Ten champion, Schrobilgen ends his UW cross country career with his third All-America honor. He is the 13th runner to earn three or more All-America honors on the course for UW.

"When you come to a program like this, you come here because there are guys that have come before you and done great things," Schrobilgen said. "They have set the bar so high. It can be daunting, but I think the best way to look at it is that it's a challenge. To pursue that challenge, that's so much fun. It makes it so worthwhile being here and being a part of it. I'm just happy to be able to help my team today. It helps them get on track for something really special here in the future.

"I think this team has got such a good culture now where they are just going to improve leaps and bounds the next couple years here."

The UW women capped off a turnaround season with a 14th-place showing. The Badger women have now finished in the top-15 of the NCAA cross country championship 21 times.

Wisconsin began November unranked after finishing sixth at the Big Ten meet and will end their season No. 14 in the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association National Coaches' Poll.

"To end up in 14th place, it's awesome," Byrne said. "Going unranked three to four weeks ago and ending up 14th in the country. These women believed in Coach Miller, they stuck with her, and now they're being rewarded for that."

After battling injuries for the last 18 months, junior Sarah Disanza led UW with a 54th-place finish in only her third race of the season.

"Our number one goal with Sarah is to keep her healthy, so we've been very conservative over the last two months of training to get her to this meet," assistant coach Jill Miller said. "For her to run as well as she did off of so little actual running is amazing. She went out there and fought hard and moved through the pack very, very well to finish 54th."

University of Wisconsin Athletics

Badgers wrap seasons on high note at NCAAs

Related News

Players Mentioned

Morgan McDonald

Malachy Schrobilgen

Related Videos