Chico State's Scott Bauhs ended his collegiate career with a bang today, overcoming cold and windy conditions to win the NCAA Division II Cross Country title at Cooper's Lake Campground in Slippery Rock, Pa.
Bauhs, who made the U.S. team for the IAAF World Cross Country Championships last year, opened up an early lead with Adams State's Aaron Braun, last year's runner-up at these championships. Running on a snow-covered and frozen course, Braun was able to keep Bauhs within a few strides of him through the first half of the race, but Bauhs was simply too strong. Shooting one more look over his shoulder as he began the last of the ten kilometers of the course, Bauhs had a commanding lead coming into the finish. He waved to the crowd as he cruised to finish in 30:25 (unofficial). Braun held on for second, and Queens University's Michael Crouch finished a distant third.
Braun, however, got the satisfaction of leading the Grizzlies to the team title, beating their Colorado rivals Western State by 21 points. Bauhs's Chico State finished third.
Bauhs announced last week that he would forgo his NCAA eligibility for the spring track season and turn pro, choosing instead to graduate at the end of this semester with a degree in social science. A sub-4:00 miler, Bauhs ran personal bests this year of 13:31.90 for 5000m and 27:48.06 for 10,000m. He finished a disappointing 16th at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials in the 10,000m last July, but really showed his potential when he won the third leg of the prestigious Chiba Ekiden last November in Japan.
"My experience at Chico has been phenomenal, beyond my wildest dreams," Bauhs said at a press conference on Nov. 18, according to an account in the Enterprise Record newspaper. "But right now is the right time for me to turn pro because, hopefully after next weekend, I will have accomplished everything I set out to accomplish athletically at the collegiate level."
The NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships had been dominated for the last four years by Abilene Christian's Nicodemus Naimadu, a Kenyan, who made NCAA history when he won the D-II title for the fourth straight time last year when it was held in Joplin, Mo. Naimadu is now racing professionally.
Seattle Pacific University's Jessica Pixler, a junior, easily won her second consecutive NCAA Division II Cross Country title today, on the 6 km course at the Cooper's Lake Campground in Slippery Rock, Pa. The race was held in very cold conditions on a snow covered course, and blowing snow greeted the runners at the start of the race.
Pixler, twice the NCAA D-II indoor champion at the mile, more than doubled her 13 second winning margin from last year's race, beating Shippensburg University's freshman Neely Spence by nearly half a minute. Pixler was clocked in 21:00 (unofficial), 28 seconds up on Spence, the daughter of 1991 IAAF World Championships Marathon bronze medalist Steve Spence, who outsprinted Shannon Payne of the University of Colorado/Colorado Springs in the final 200m.
The Adams State Grizzlies won their sixth straight team title with 79 points.
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