Recent success has helped the University of Wisconsin-Platteville vault into the top 10 in the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Association Coaches poll.

In the poll released on Oct. 3, the Pioneer men’s team ranked ninth in the country while the women’s team tied for eighth with Willamette University.

The UW-P men’s team has had great success at several prestigious invitational meets this season, including finishing second as a team at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis on Sept. 29.

According to the Office of Sports Information, senior mechanical engineering major Tyler Sigl captured an unprecedented third straight individual title at the Griak Invitational, covering the 8 kilometer Les Bolstad course in 25:21.

“It was a great accomplishment to win my third Griak title,” Sigl said. “No one has ever won three titles in a row before, so I made a little Griak history. Whenever you make history you always feel special.”

Three other Pioneers finished in the top 25 during the race as well: Tony Kilburg in 20th, Jason Garvens in 23rd and Cam Klein in 24th.

These high finishes helped the Pioneers to narrowly finish behind the Eagles of UW-La Crosse, who won their fifth team title.

Sigl and the rest of the team also did well at the St. Olaf Invitational in Northfield, Minn., on Sept. 15.

Sigl took third at St. Olaf, leading the team to a strong second place finish.

One thing that is helping this year’s team is how deep and talented the team is.

“A significant part of that success is due to the fact that our team has some great depth this year,” Cam Klein, senior mechanical engineering major, said. “In years past, we were struggling to get good races out of seven guys. This year, we have up to 10 men that are interchangeable in our top seven.

“One of our primary objectives right now is to take advantage of that newfound depth and push each other to run faster races.”

This depth is already paying dividends in races like the Dan Huston Invitational at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, on Oct. 6.

The Pioneers placed 12th out of 56 teams and had two runners in the top 15 with Kilburg placing 12th and Garvens placing 14th out of 130 runners.

Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams will head to West Salem for the Drews/Neubauer Invite hosted by UW-LC on Saturday, Oct. 13.

“With the depth that our team has this year, we have some pretty high goals set for the season,” Sigl said. “We want to be top two at conference, top three at regionals and top four at nationals.

“Last year we made it to nationals and didn’t run to our abilities. This year we want to reverse that and run above our abilities and expectations.”