Runners-up

Men take Badgers down to the wire, fall by two points

STATE COLLEGE - It was supposed to be a close race.

The result, though, was closer than anyone could have imagined.

At Saturday's Big Ten Championship, the Michigan's men's cross country team came within two points of the favorite, No. 5 Wisconsin, finally losing by a score of 38 to 40. But after the race, the No. 8 Wolverines didn't look like a team that had just lost in a heartbreaker.

LOUIS BROWN/Daily Jay Cantin's third-place finish certainly helped, but it was the strength of Michigan's pack that allowed the Wolverines to come within two points of top dog Wisconsin at the Big Ten Championships in State College on Saturday.

"I don't know what else we could have done," Michigan coach Ron Warhurst said. "We couldn't have done much better."

Warhurst's reactions were a result of the daunting task that Wisconsin presented for Michigan. The Badgers' top two runners, Matt Downin and Jay Schoenfelder, placed first and second respectively, with times of 24:57 and 25:06.

"Downin was fifth in the NCAA last year," Warhurst said. "He's a tremendous runner. And I think Schoenfelder was 16th. You're running against two of the top kids in the country."

The two Wisconsin runners were followed closely followed by Michigan's senior co-captain Jay Cantin.

"I'm very proud of the entire group," Wisconsin coach Jerry Schumacher said. "Every singly guy, one through seven, did what they had to do today."

Following the top three were Indiana's Tom Chorny and Michigan's Mike Wisniewski. Michigan's other senior co-captain, Steven Lawrence, expected to finish in the top four, still posted a respectable 25:34 run, putting him in sixth place.

Chorny's excellent race was not enough to pull his Hoosiers higher than the fifth team spot. At the four-mile mark, he was leading Cantin and the rest of the Michigan pack before being overcome. Most, including Warhurst, were surprised to find his name among the top five.

Ian Conner, the junior out of Ohio State, did not perform as well as expected. Picked to finish in the top five, Conner, who led the early miles of the race, fell to 20th place by the end. His team finished fourth, behind Minnesota's third-place performance.

As the race reached its climax, it appeared as though Wisconsin was on its way to proving with little question how they had reached such a high ranking. Unfortunately for them, Michigan wasn't about to die quietly.

Michigan's final two scorers, Mark Pilja and Tom Caughlan, crossed the finish line after having blown past several runners in the homestretch. For Caughlan, the 15th-place finish was the sophomore's first time in his career that he finished in Michigan's top five.

"(Tom) must have passed 10 to 12 guys in the last half-mile," Warhurst said. "Usually, guys can't do that."

Downin expressed his frustration at seeing what seemed to be an insurmountable lead turn into a race whose result was not immediately known.

"We thought we had this thing won," he said. "We thought we were the better

team."

Schumacher reacted similarly, feeling that after watching his two men cross the finish line first, he could never have expected how close it

turned out to be.

"I think our guys did a heck of a job responding to this," he said. "We're

very excited about the outcome of this."

Despite the second place finish, the same was true of the Michigan runners.

"They're the fifth best team in the country, and I think we proved that we're equal to them" Lawrence said. "The only real difference is that we

don't get the championship, we don't get the ring. Two points, that's such a small margin. It's no big deal."

For the Badgers, trouble came at the end when junior Jason Vanderhoof went down with an injury after crossing the finish line. While details were not

available, it is unknown whether he will be available for their upcoming meets.

Next up for Michigan is the NCAA Great Lakes Regional in Terre Haute, Indiana on November 13, where they will again face off against the Badgers as well as the rest of the region.

11-01-99