Related Links:
NCAA Championship Microsite
NCAA Division III Men's Cross Country Web Page
 
The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater men's cross country team will make its first team trip to the national meet in nearly two decades this week as it heads to the NCAA Division III Men's Cross Country Championship to compete this Saturday at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky.
 
The men's 8-kilometer race is set to begin at 10 a.m. Central Time (11 a.m. in Louisville), and the awards ceremony will take place near the finish line following the conclusion of the women's 6K, which starts at 11 a.m. Central Time.
 
The Warhawks punched their team ticket to the national championship by winning the NCAA North Regional last Saturday. The win gave UW-W the region's automatic bid to this Saturday's meet.
 
UW-Whitewater placed first at three straight meets to start the 2021 season, winning the UW-Platteville Gender Equity Invite (Sept. 11), the annual Tom Hoffman Invitational (Sept. 18) and the Blugold Invitational (Oct. 1).
 
After a runner-up finish at the highly competitive Inter-Regional Rumble in Oberlin, Ohio, on Oct. 16, the Warhawks finished second at the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship, just four points shy of the title.
 
The Warhawks, who have been ranked among the top 10 in the nation all season by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, enter the weekend ranked eighth in Division III by the USTFCCCA.
 
David Fassbender (Slinger, Wis./Slinger), a two-time All-American, leads UW-Whitewater into the championship. The program's first-ever individual regional champion and the first WIAC individual champion since 2004, Fassbender has won five of the six races he's entered in during the 2021 season. He ran a season-best 24:34.05 and was recently named the North Region Men's Athlete of the Year by the USTFCCCA.
 
Fassbender is backed by all-region and all-conference performers Christian Patzka (Black Earth, Wis./Wisconsin Heights), Gunner Schlender (Brillion, Wis./Brillion), Justin Krause (Ixonia, Wis./Pewaukee) and Kyle Neuroth (Muskego, Wis./Muskego).
 
Patzka finished as runner-up at the regional meet with a personal-record time of 24:34.48 and placed fourth at the WIAC Championship. Schlender finished third at conference and sixth at the regional race with his career-best 24:44.80.
 
Krause and Neuroth placed 24th and 25th, respectively, at the regional championship and were each among the top 15 at the conference meet. Krause ran a personal-best time of 25:03.98, while Neuroth, who joined the program with Fassbender in 2017, crossed the finish line in 25:04.36.
 
Christian Seagren (Dixon, Ill./Dixon) and Conner Hackett (Darlington, Wis./Darlington) round out the UW-W group heading to Louisville this week. Seagren finished 43rd overall at the NCAA North Regional with his PR of 25:35.99. Hackett, a senior, raced to a 54th-place finish at the WIAC Championship with a season-best 27:06.4. Hackett owns a PR of 25:45.4.
 
The Warhawks are coached by Jeff Miller, who is in his 40th year at the helm of the program. Miller garnered North Region Men's Coach of the Year accolades from the USTFCCCA earlier this week.