For the second straight year the Badgers Men's track team took home the Big Ten indoor track title, this time narrowly besting Nebraska with a total of 122.5 point to the Huskers' 118 points. Winning indoor track titles is nothing new for the Badgers, as this title made it the 25th such for the UW program.
It was the first under the leadership of Mick Byrne, who transitioned this year to the director of cross country and track & field. Wisconsin got a lot of help thanks to four individual titles going its way.
Mohammed Ahmed (5,000 meter run), Reed Connor (3,000 meter run), Japheth Cato (heptathlon) and Michael Lihrman (weight throw) were winners at their respective events for the Badgers. Lihrman and Cato's titles were especially noteworthy, as Lihrman's distance of 23.78 meters set the Big Ten Championship record, while Cato became the first person in conference history to win the heptathlon four times in their career.
Building off of UW's successful history as a distance running school, the Badgers got maximum points in the 5,000 meter run as Ahmed was trailed by teammates Connor and Malachy Schrobilgen for a 1-2-3 Badger finish in the event.
Ahmed, Cato, Connor and Lihrman each earned 1st team All-Big Ten honors with their victories. On the 2nd team were seven Badgers—Babatunde Awosika, Danny Block, Alex Hatz, Carl Hirsch, Austin Mudd, Collin Taylor and Zach Ziemek.
Everyone on the 2nd team but Hatz and Hirsch finished second in their respective disciplines, and none were closer than were Mudd, Taylor and Ziemek. Mudd finished the 800 meter final in 1:49.56, just.04 behind the winner, while Taylor earned second place points in the high jump, with a height of 2.12 meters (6 feet, 9 inches), just missing out on the winning height of 2.15 meters (7 feet, 1 inch). Ziemek nearly bested his teammate Cato in the heptathlon, earning 5,815 points to Cato's total of 5,837.
Block finished second in the shot put, throwing a distance of 19.15 meters. Hatz took third in the 1 mile run, recording a time of 4:16.12, finishing just under four-tenths of a second behind the event winner, John Simons, of Minnesota.
Awosika and Hirsch earned honors by being part of the Badgers second-place distance medley team.
While it was another great weekend for the men, the women didn't fare nearly as well this weekend. The Women's Track & Field team finished dead last in the 11-team field with 29 points. The biggest highlight came from Deanna Latham, who won the Pentathlon with a total of 4,178 points.
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