Sometimes there’s nothing like a little home cooking, well that and a ton of really good performances. After two days of competition at the Dan McClimon complex the Badgers Men’s and Women’s track teams stand atop the team standings in the Big Ten Outdoor Track Championships.
The Women’s team currently is on top with 52 team points and are being chased by Purdue in 2nd with 32 points after the completion of day two. Wisconsin used a 1-2-3 finish from their ladies in the Heptathlon to score 24 team points.
Jessica Flax led the way, earning the Badgers sixth straight conference crown in the event. She also rewrote the school record books with 5,772 points which is fourth best in the nation this year to date. Following her were Dorcas Akinniyi and Deanna Latham in 2nd and 3rd respectively. The podium sweep was the Badgers third straight season sweeping the titles in the pentathlon (indoor) and heptathlon (outdoor).
Adding to the record performance was the fact that this was the first 1-2-3 finish for any set of teammates in the indoor and outdoor events in the same season in conference history.
The heptathletes weren’t the only ones scoring points for the Badgers Women’s track and field team as a trio of field athletes added to the point totals. Kelsey Card and Taylor Smith added points by finishing 4th and 5th in the shot put and senior Meghann Rennhack took 4th in the javelin.
Also adding points was Ashley Beutler, who scored a 4th place finish in the 3,000 meter steeplechase. Her time of 10:27.92 set a personal best for her and ranked her 2nd all-time at Wisconsin.
Over on the men’s side of the ledger it was record breaking performances that put the Badgers in the drivers seat heading in to the final day of action. Wisconsin currently stands a top the team point totals with 62 points and a full 20 points ahead of 2nd place Indiana, who’s just ahead of Nebraska in their first ever Big Ten Championships.
A pair of Dan’s led the Badger effort on day two as Dan Grzesiak took third in the decathlon with 7,897 points. That performance put him 3rd all-time at Wisconsin in the event on the strength of four-personal bests.
The other performance by a Dan was from Dan Block who set a school record in the discus with a throw of 195 feet, 8 inches, which was also good for the Big Ten title in the event.
Wisconsin wasn’t done scoring from the field events for the night either as Japheth Cato set a personal best in the long jump, going 25 feed, 1 3/4 inches and finishing fourth for the event.
The Badgers continued to rack up points in the high jump as Paul Annear and Collin Taylor finished 7th and 8th with equal jumps of 6-11.
Just because Wisconsin performed so well in the events over the first two days doesn’t mean it’s a forgone conclusion that they’ll win either the Men’s or Women’s title at the end of Sunday. But the Men’s team has 8 guys qualified for event finals while the women have 13 competing in events on the final day so if they can get some points on the boards and stay steady in their performances a sweep of the titles aren’t out of the question.
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