The Wisconsin mens' track team returned from the 100th Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sunday, carrying home victories in the shuttle hurdle relay on Saturday and for the first time in the 4x800-meter relay on Friday.
The Badger's quartet of Adam Hexum, Temi Ogunbodede, Nate Larkin and Seth Pelock won the shuttle hurdle with a time of 58.21 seconds, holding off second-place Illinois, which finished at 58.81. According to the quartet, the team had not been focusing on quite as much in their practices.
While the shuttle hurdle is quite the uncommon race for the team, it was an opportunity for the Badgers to capitalize a victory. This was the second championship of the weekend and their 14th title overall in Drake relay events.
""Obviously it's a huge event, so it's one of those accolades you can hold onto, because it's been going on for 100 years and it's going to keep going on,"" Larkin said. ""It's a little different because it's in the shuttle hurdle, but it's a championship and we're proud to have won it.""
Hexum, Ogunbodede, Pelock and senior Brandon Boettcher secured a top seed going into the finals after the four clocked a 59.12 in the preliminaries session earlier that day.
Just two and a half hours later, Larkin took third place in the 110-meter hurtles, clocking a 13.89 and breaking 14 seconds for the first time in his career.
""Jumping from 14.11 to 13.89 may seem big, but for me, I know what I should have been running. I needed to race the way I was running indoor,"" Larkin said. ""When you have guys out in front of you that are running .50s and .60s, you can just latch on to them. You feel them and you feel the crowd and it just makes you turn over faster.""
For the first time in the 100-year history of the event Wisconsin won a title in the 4x800-meter relay with an strong time of 7:21.10—now the second-fastest outdoor 4x800 time in the world this year. The Badgers held off Northern Iowa who came in close second with 7:21.45.
The Badgers' foursome of junior Craig Miller, senior Steve Ludwig, junior Jack Bolas and sophomore Zach Beth dealt the fastest time for a UW quartet in the 4x800 since 1976.
""The crowd really helped me get pumped up, because the announcer put the info out about us never winning this race since the meet started,"" Beth said. ""I knew I had to get enough of an edge so that (Norther Iowa's Tyler Mulder) or anyone else in the field couldn't haul me down late in the race.""
Wisconsin collected another third-place finish in the distance-medley relay with a time of 9:43.69, behind Stanford and Minnesota. Sophomore Quinn Evans kept the Badgers close to the leaders with a 47.2-second lap.
Meanwhile in the sprint medley relay, the Badgers quartet of freshman Kyle Jefferson, junior Chas DeMers, junior Barry Gill and sophomore Luke Rucks recorded a 10th-place finish in 3:26.41, as Northern Iowa won the event in a time of 3:19.55.
Junior Rory Linder, having already qualified for NCAA regionals in the event, finished 16th in the discus, throwing 156 feet, 4 inches.
Wisconsin is set to compete in three separate meets next weekend as distance runners will head to the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif., the sprinters traveling to the Arkansas Twilight in Fayetteville, Ark., and the rest of the team staying in Madison for the Wisconsin Open.
—uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.
