WHITEWATER — Jaden Hendrickson, a native of Hollandale and graduate of Pecatonica High School, is a member of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater football team, which clinched at least a share of the program’s 38th Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship on Nov. 6 with a 13-7 win against UW-La Crosse in front of 11,991 fans at Perkins Stadium in Whitewater.
Hendrickson, a freshman at UW-Whitewater, is majoring in physical education.
With the win, the Warhawks (9-0 overall, 6-0 WIAC) earn the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Playoffs, which began Nov. 20 with a 69-7 thrashing of Greenville (Ill.)
UW-Whitewater wrapped up the regular season on Nov. 13 at UW-Stevens Point with a 56-10 win.
Up next, the Warhawks face Depauw (Ind.) Nov. 27 at home with a noon kickoff.
Darlington’s Hackett part of regional title, NCAA Championship bid for Men’s CC
WHITEWATER — Conner Hackett, a native of Darlington is a member of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater men’s cross country team, which made its first team trip to the national meet in nearly two decades to the NCAA Division III Men’s Cross Country Championship Nov. 20 at E.P. “Tom” Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky.
The men’s 8-kilometer race is began at 10 a.m. Central Time (11 a.m. in Louisville), and the awards ceremony took place near the finish line following the conclusion of the women’s 6K.
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 one point 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), a two-time All-American, led 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), Justin Krause (Ixonia/Pewaukee) and Kyle Neuroth (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.) and Conner Hackett (Darlington) round out the UW-W team. 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.
Chris Allen (Downers Grove, Ill./North) competed at the regional meet, but did not compete at the NCAA Championship due to illness.
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 in the week.
At the NCAA Championships, UW-W was fifth as a team, and Fassbender was fifth (23:57.1) as an individual. Alex Phillip, a sophomore from John Carroll, was the national champion (23:27.6).
Hackett finished 265th overall with a time of 26:08.1.
