MADISON, Wis. – Sophomore Bob Liking led the 11th-ranked Wisconsin men's cross country team to a fourth-place finish at their own Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational on Friday afternoon.
 
Liking placed fifth, running a personal best of 23 minutes, 27.1 seconds, beating his previous time by nearly a minute. Redshirt senior Olin Hacker placed 13th in 23:38.1, beating his previous best by two seconds. Junior Jackson Sharp came in right behind Hacker, finishing 16th in 23:40.6, improving his previous best by more than 30 seconds.
 
The Badgers scored 187 points to finish behind champion No. 6 Iowa State (88), No. 3 Stanford (104) and No. 12 Tulsa (160), respectively.  No. 30 Air Force finished fifth with 225 points while Wisconsin finished ahead of No. 9 Oregon (sixth with 271 points) and No. 10 Furman (ninth with 302 points).
 
Other Wisconsin finishers were sophomore Rowen Ellenberg, 65th in 24:11.6; senior Seth Hirsch, 89th in 24:26.5; and sophomore Evan Bishop, 138th in 24:45.4.
 

Aljabaly wins B race

Senior Shuaib Aljabaly competed unattached for the Badgers, winning the B race in 24:18.3. Freshman Adam Spencer also competed unattached, finishing 10th in 24:54.4.
 
As a team, Wisconsin finished eighth with 160 points. Redshirt freshman Oliver Paleen was the top team finisher, coming in 36th in 25:29.0.
 
Other Wisconsin finishers were Nick Hruskoci, competing unattached and placing 56th in 25:51.4; redshirt junior Kavanaugh FitzPatrick, 59th in 25:55.1; freshman Matt Meinke, 69th in 26:11.0; redshirt freshman Ben Schnoor, 73rd in 26:17.9; and redshirt freshman Jake Krause, 91st in 28:11.5.
 

Straight from the Course

Director Track & Field and Cross Country Mick Byrne
"It's always a great spectacle, I mean look at the crowd that's out here today. Getting back on our own course, hosting this great event, with all these great teams … it is no secret the number of top 20 teams that were here this weekend. It's always fun and it's a big cross country carnival. Great athletes rise to the occasion when competing in this kind of environment."
 
On Bob Liking
"His improvement over the last six months is just absolutely mind blowing. He is out there mixing it up with some of the best distance runners in the country. I bet he didn't even know who half of the big names were who he was running alongside with. He looked like he was possessed out there, he looked like he wasn't afraid of anyone, mostly because he didn't know who they were. For a young guy to come in here and lead this team, that is an amazing job."
 
Sophomore Bob Liking
"I'm really pumped up, it was such a fun race, we had a good pack going there. The last 2k hurt a lot but I think being on our home course I knew that was coming. I was able to use that bit to my advantage. It was a good day for us. 

"The coaches were all around the course and were just telling us like "yeah we're right up there" and we knew we had team implications just for nationals and qualifying. Last time we raced other than a couple weeks ago was back in May. We just had a lot of training and so it's now starting to show up and we've been working out so well and we knew something good was coming. It's the first time I raced here (Zimmer). We've done so many workouts here obviously and it felt amazing and to actually get to race on this course it was super nice, having all the Wisconsin's fans out here."

Up Next

The Badgers hve two weeks off before the Big Ten Conference championships on Oct. 29 in University Park, Pennsylvania.