The Wisconsin men's and women's track and field teams provided another strong display of distance running over the weekend at the Meyo Invitational in Notre Dame, Ind.
The outstanding performer at the meet was sophomore Jack Bolas, who won the invitational mile and broke a 30-year-old UW record with a time of 3 minutes, 59.40 seconds. The previous best of 4:00.4 was set by Steve Lacy in 1978, nine years before Bolas was born.
Bolas' time - o the first NCAA automatic qualifying time for the Badgers this season - o ranks him fifth nationally and leads this season's ranking of Big Ten competitors.
For his efforts, Bolas has been named the Big Ten Conference co-Athlete of the Week along with Illinois' Gakalogelwang Masheto. The last Badger to receive the indoor honor since sprinter Demi Omole won, Feb. 13, 2007.
Meanwhile, sophomore Brandon Bethke also went under the four-minute barrier in the mile to finish third in 3:59.85 and provisionally qualify for the NCAA Championship.
In the open mile, freshman Evan Jager won in 4:03.73 while sophomore Ryan Gasper placed second in 4:04.98. Both times were NCAA provisional qualifying marks.
Junior Matt Withrow also clinched the men's 5,000 meters in 14:11.28.
In the men's 4x400-meter relay, the team of Andrew Milenkovski, Kyle Jefferson, Quinn Evans and James Groce ran a season's best time of 3:10.62 to finish third. Groce also finished sixth in the open 400 meters with an indoor personal best time of 47.51.
The women's team saw three athletes - seniors Ann Detmer and Katrina Rundhaug and junior Jenny Soceka - earn NCAA provisional qualifying marks.
Detmer finished third in the mile, clocking a personal best time of 4:44.22. Her time was almost four seconds under the NCAA provisional qualifying mark of 4:48.00.
In the 3,000 meters, Rundhaug finished fifth with a personal best and NCAA provisional qualifying time of 9:23.02.
In other notable finishes, junior Chavon Robinson recorded a personal best of 41.15 to place fourth in the triple jump. Her jump moves her into second place on the UW all-time list.
Robinson also finished fourth in the long jump with a personal best of 19.9.
The women's 4x400 team of Caitlin Dodge, Kaitlyn Marsolek, Nicole Slaby and Carly Ducharme also ran a season-best time to place 11th in 3:48.15.
This Saturday, Bolas and the UW distance runners travel to Seattle to compete in the Husky Classic at the University of Washington. Events begin at 10:30 a.m. in the Dempsey Indoor, which features a 307-meter track.
The rest of the track team will travel to Ames, Iowa, for the ISU Classic on Friday and Saturday. All events will be held in the Lied Recreational Center on the Iowa State University campus, which features a 300-meter, eight-lane track.
Field events begin at 1:30 p.m. on Friday with running events starting at 2 p.m. Unseeded sections of several running events start at 9:25 a.m. Saturday with field events beginning at 10:30 a.m. All seeded running events start at noon.
- uwbadgers.com contributed
to this report
