There was no individual who qualified for nationals this year for the Warhawks, but the men’s and women’s teams represented UW-Whitewater well Saturday at the Midwest Regional.
Mathias Werve ran the best time on the men’s side, finishing 27th and leading the ’Hawks to a tenth place finish. On the women’s side, Madeline Roznos led the team to a 16th place finish, and ended up 25th individually, running a 22:47.5 in the 6K. This became her best time of the season.
Head coach Jeff Miller was pleased at how his men’s team performed on Saturday.
“We knew from the beginning that our team was a long shot, but we ended up finishing tenth,” Miller said. “We ended up beating Eau-Claire who beat us at conference, so we ran a solid race as a team. It wasn’t our best, but we beat the teams we were supposed to beat and in order to beat the teams ahead of us, we were going to have to run kind of a perfect race.”
Despite not making it to nationals, Werve was also happy with the team’s efforts.
“I really think I had a good season,” Werve said. “Obviously it didn’t end the way I wanted to but it is what it is. We have a strong team and we tried our hardest, but we just didn’t come out on top that day.”
Despite not making it to nationals, three runners for the ‘Hawks received all-region honors, which were given to runners finishing in the top 35. Werve, Roznos and Alyssa Duncan achieved these honors. This is the third time in Werve’s and Roznos’ careers in which they received all-region honors. However, it wasn’t just these three runners that caught Miller’s eye.
“One of the kids who ran really well was Matthew Rudquist,” Miller said. “He was our sixth runner, so he didn’t count in the scoring, but he’s a freshman and he bounced back and ran a really good race.”
For the women, Roznos has never made it to nationals, but finished 25th at regionals this year, which was her best finish in her career after finishing 27th last year and 30th the year before. Despite Roznos’ and Duncan’s success, Miller felt the women’s team didn’t place as high as they could have.
“In a way we’re a little disappointed,” Miller said. “I was hoping for a top-10 finish, but we ended up 16th. There were some teams that beat us that we know we’re better than, but that’s how things work.”
