Men's seventh-place shows youthfulness

By Jeb Singer

Daily Sports Writer

MADISON - In the middle of one of the Wisconsin men's cross country team's first meets of this season, freshman Joe Eckerly fell down and stayed down in pain for about two and a half minutes. In the Big Ten championships yesterday at Yahara Hills Golf Course in Madison, Eckerly fell once again.

But this time - perhaps motivated by the importance of the meet or maybe because he fell right in front of Wisconsin coach Jerry Schumacher - Eckerly got up in a second.

When Eckerly crossed the finish line on his feet, Wisconsin had won its 35th Big Ten team championship. The Badgers also repeated as champions for the first time since they won three in a row from 1994-96.

"Thank goodness he did" get up, Schumacher said with a laugh. "He responded really well to something you don't anticipate happening normally."

Something else happened yesterday that is not supposed to occur at a Big Ten championship meet - Michigan finished seventh. This represents the first time in 11 years when the Wolverines have not been among the top two teams at the conference meet.

Michigan junior Mark Pilja, considered by many the favorite coming into the meet, finished a disappointing fourth in a time of 24:13. Five of the other six Michigan runners were freshmen.

Michigan coach Ron Warhurst believed the lackluster performances from the freshmen were largely due to the intimidation factor of running in the Big Ten championships.

"Racing in a high school state cross country meet is nothing like facing your fears at the Big Tens," Warhurst said.

While the freshmen had experienced mixed results prior to the Big Ten meet, Pilja had been nothing short of outstanding, fashioning a three-meet winning streak in which he was never really challenged. Midway through the race yesterday, it appeared as if a "four-peat" was in order.

Pilja had opened up a five-meter lead and was running strong. Wisconsin's duo of Jason Vanderhoof and Jared Cordes, as well as Indiana's Aaron Gillen, all refused to let Pilja run away.

But it was not until about 200 meters from the finish line that Pilja surrendered he lead for good. And as he crossed the line, it was all too clear that he had not done what he had set out to do.

"I knew it was going to be a tough race." Pilja said. "Maybe I'm a little surprised I couldn't pull away from them. To be honest, when the first two pulled away my heart wasn't into it. My goal was to come here and win - not to get fourth place."

Pilja's high levels of motivation and competitiveness have been instrumental in his success this year.

And, while he is not the conference champion, his coach knows that the desire was certainly there.

"I guess (Pilja) led at the wrong times. He gave it all he could," Warhurst said. "There are no timeouts, no halftimes, no quarters. I can't pull him out and say 'Do this, do that.' Unfortunately, he didn't have any help from other people on the team this year, but that will change next year, I hope."

While Michigan does not have as strong a team as it has had in past years, Warhurst is quick to acknowledge that teams are weaker all over the Big Ten.

"That does not take away from Wisconsin's victory," Warhurst said. "Anytime you win a Big Ten championship, you win a Big Ten championship.

"It was their home course and they came to run. They did a great job. We could've run our best race all season and we wouldn't have beaten them. Nobody would've beaten them today."

While Eckerly and his Wisconsin teammates are standing strong atop the conference, the Wolverines have undoubtedly fallen.

The fact that many of the teams that finished ahead of Michigan will lose runners to graduation may be a very marginal consolation to the Wolverines, at least as far as the present is concerned.

"Sure, we are a team of the future. But we wanted the future to start out today," Pilja said.