MADISON, Wis. – Three Badgers finished in the top-10 to propel the No. 18 Wisconsin women’s cross country team to a team title at the Badger Classic on Saturday morning at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course.
The Badgers scored 46 points to top No. 16 Ohio State and No. 25 Michigan. The Badger Classic was an opportunity for the team to start the season and prepare for upcoming meets, including the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational presented by Under Armour, which the Badgers will host on Oct. 13.
It was a great team performance for the Badgers, as graduate student Victoria Heiligenthal led them with a time of 18 minutes, 18.6 seconds on the 5 kilometer-course. Redshirt freshman Isabella Jacobsen was right behind Heiligenthal as she finished seventh in 18:18.8. Danielle Orie was the third Badger to finish in the top-10, coming in eighth in 18:18.8.
Also helping lead the Badgers to the team crown was graduate student Samantha Stieve, who finished in 11th place, covering the course in 18:23.4, and sophomore Kylie Finger who finished the course in 18:33.0, taking 14th place.
Four other Badgers crossed the finish line as Vivan Hacker, Maggie Munson, Emma Watcke, and Peyton Sippy, placed 18th, 20th, 26th, and 28th, respectively.
Straight from the Course
UW Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Mick Byrne
On the race:
“The women were great, ran together as a pack. We maybe pushed it a little bit early when they didn’t need to. I think it’s a learning process that they put all of their energy into the entire race rather than into a segment of the race.”
“It was a close competition and we figured it was going to be, and they have to learn how to compete when the teams go this tight and they did a great job with that.”
Victoria Heiligenthal
On the overall race:
“Today was a really awesome day for our team, I’m really proud of how we showed up and got out there. We raced a lot of really good Big Ten teams today that we are going to continue to see throughout the season and our girls fought back really hard. We all worked together really well and it’s only going to show upward projection from here. It’s going to be fun racing at Zimmer all the time and I think it showed our strength today, so I’m really excited to see what we can do the rest of the season.”
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