It's tough to win in any sport playing a man short, but in cross-country if you have just one unproductive spot the team's performance can be ruined.

Yesterday, at the University of Illinois Golf Course the No.4 Wisconsin Badgers won their third straight Big Ten Championship out-dueling No.12 Michigan by a score of 28 to 71. The Nittany Lions finished sixth overall with a score of 131.

Senior Steve Walsh led the way with a 14th place performance in a time of 24:22. It was enough to earn Walsh All-Big Ten Second Team Honors. The Lions first four finishers came in tightly packed as they finished just 14 seconds apart from each other. Senior John McGrorey finished in 19th overall with a time of 24:30. He was closely followed by sophomore Scott Munro and senior Gregg Davis who both finished at 24:36 with Munro edging out Davis for 25th by two-tenths of a second. However, junior Josh Loren could only muster a time of 25:07 and a 47th place finish.

"It was a very fast flat course, it made for a very fast race," Penn State men's cross country coach Harry Groves said.

"Team wise we were stacked pretty good, it wasn't a big gap between Indiana, Ohio St. and ourselves. We are still having problems with the fifth man being back too far, he is running a hard race but for us to do anything effectively he's got to close it up."

Freshman phenom Alan Webb of Michigan won the individual title with a sparkling time of 23:19. He was closely followed by Wisconsin freshman Matt Tegenkamp. They were able to distance themselves by 26 seconds from the field and Walsh finished just about a minute behind the two young stars.

Walsh was able to rebound from his performance two weeks ago here at Penn State with his personal best time.

"I felt a lot better, I was under the weather," Walsh said. "A week of recuperating and a "little r and r" paid off."

Walsh is the third Lion runner in the last two seasons to be named to an All-Big Ten team as Chris McGinness and James Carney were named to the teams last year.

"It's a great feeling its what you want to do, it's what you work for, it's what you get up for," Walsh said. "We got to work for now and we got to get up and make nationals it's next up on the plate, it's our next goal."

Walsh knows that he must run his best in the big races and the Lions have another big race in two weeks at the NCAA Regional Championships. The top two teams there will earn the right to qualify for the NCAA Championships, the Lions' next goal.