The 2012 NCAA Finals are complete and Wisconsin placed 11 runners/throwers on the all-American teams. The Badgers had five first team all-Americans – led by Rob Finnerty’s 5th place finish for the men in the 1500 and Jessica Flax’s 4th place in the Women’s Heptathlon. Six Badgers earned second team all-American honors as well.
Wisconsin’s domination in the 1500 meters continued with Finnerty’s performance at the Finals. He is the 10th all-American for the Badgers in the event and the school’s 17th all-American award with his 5th place finish. Most of the domination has come lately as Wisconsin has seven AA’s in the past five seasons.
Joining Finnerty as a first team all-American were Mohammed Ahmed (7th in 5000M), Elliot Krause (6th in 10000M) and the Women’s heptathlon duo of Jessica Flax (4th) and Dorcas Akinniyi (8th).
On the second team were Dan Block (12th in Men’s Discuss), Japheth Cato (14th in Men’s Decathlon), Austin Mudd (11th in Men’s 800M), Kelsey Card (16th in Women’s Discus), Caitlin Comfort (9th in Women’s 10,000M), and Danna Latham (T-10th in Women’s Heptathlon).
Perhaps the most impressive performance of the meet has to go to the contingent of Badgers competing in the Women’s Heptathlon. Akinniyi, Flax, and Latham were 1-2-3 finishers in the Big Ten Championships and all three managed to become all-Americans in the same season.
On the team side of things the men finished 32nd with just 9 points and the National Championship went to Florida who beat out 2nd place LSU 50 to 48. The Women finished tied for 40th with 6 points and the National Championship went to LSU in commanding fashion (76 points to Oregon’s 62).
Following the end of the meet UWBadgers.com caught up with Rob Finnerty, so check out his interview here:
Over the next few weeks we’ll be keeping tabs as a lot of Badgers will be competing for spots on national teams for the Olympics in London this year.
With the end of the meet yesterday the 2011-12 season of Wisconisn Athletics has come to a conclusion. Over the next few weeks we’ll be doing a recap of the best in Badger moments from the last season, so be on the look out for that.
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