ALLENDALE, Mich. – The definition of "comeback" in the Oxford Dictionary reads, "a return by a well-known person, especially an entertainer or sports player, to the activity in which they have formerly been successful."
On Saturday (May 29), on the third and final day of the 2021 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships, the men's 4x400 relay saw quite a few comebacks:
- First, it was senior
Trevor Bassitt coming back from an injury which kept him from competing on both Thursday (May 27) and Friday (May 28). He anchored the men's 4x100 relay earlier in the day, then anchored the 4x4 to end the men's portion of the Championships.
- Second, Bassitt finished off Ashland's comeback in the 4x4, as the Eagle quartet of junior
Travis Marx, sophomore
Brayden Chaney, and seniors
Channing Phillips and Bassitt won the national title in 3:09.38.
"I couldn't jog on Wednesday (May 26) without any pain," Bassitt noted, adding that he warmed up well on Thursday, but couldn't hurdle without pain. "About Thursday night, we had an idea that I could maybe run the 4x4 and 4x1 finals. It just depended on how my warmup went. It's a testament to the work I put in, the work our trainer
Anthony Bartko put in…and God's blessing to be able to give me that ability.
"I didn't think it was going to happen, and I'm sure our whole team didn't, either."
- Finally, the AU men's team as a whole, scoring 25 points on Saturday, rallied to get on the podium with a tied-for-fourth place finish. Since 2007, the Eagle men have been on the podium outdoors nine times, including a national title in 2019.
"It's hard to compare to 2019 outdoors down in Texas, when we came from 40 points behind to win a national championship," said Ashland head coach
Jud Logan. "Knowing the odds that were stacked against us today, it didn't look like there was any way to reach the podium, and we did. And that's on the back of Trevor and Channing and
Brayden Chaney running the fastest split of his life, and
Travis Marx filling in. That was outstanding.
"Getting to that podium spot is just unbelievable."
Bassitt and Ashland University track and field in general are pretty well-known in D-II circles, so those comebacks shouldn't surprise many.
"I think the way the guys came together, believed in each other," said
Ernie Clark, Ashland associate head coach. "The way that they got here and still scored a lot of points, with mixed-up relays due to injury and dealing with that adversity, Channing being able to become the national champion a couple weeks after not even being in the meet…a lot of things stacked against us, yet we're still going to stand here on the podium as a team.
"Pretty amazing story."
This is the third time an AU men's outdoor 4x4 relay has won a national title, joining the quartets in 1976 and 2018.
The 4x4 was Phillips' second national championship of the day, as he took care of business in the men's 400 dash and won in 46.41 seconds. It was his first individual national title.
"It felt great. It was a long time coming, so it feels great to come out on top," Phillips said. "I thank God for this opportunity. It's a special group to be a part of."
Phillips joins
Myles Pringle as the only Eagle men to win a 400 dash national title outdoors.
"He put in so much work. Nobody deserves it more than him," Bassitt said.
Starting the day for the Eagle men was the 4x100 relay, which took fourth place in 40.43 seconds. That featured junior
Tim Rumas, Marx, freshman
Doniven Jackson and Bassitt.
When all was said and done, the career national title totals were Bassitt with six, Phillips with four, Chaney with two and Marx with one. The career All-American citations now are Bassitt 13, Phillips nine, Rumas five, Marx and Chaney three each, and Jackson one.
"We believed that this was possible," Clark said. "It was going to take special efforts, and that's what we see. For me, it is the heart of Trevor, but I think there's a pretty special link of kind of emotion and heart with the senior class specifically. They don't just run for themselves. They run for God, they run for Ashland, they run for each other.
"It's just different."
In the women's 400 hurdles, senior
Rachel Miller closed her Eagle career in style, breaking her own school record in finishing fifth at 59.06 seconds. It's Miller's second All-American award.
"
Rachel Miller is the heartbeat of the team, men and women combined," Logan said. "There's no better teammate and no better person to go out and run a lifetime best in her final race of her career, and she's going to be magnificent in whatever she does moving on in the professional world."
Said Miller, "I had my sights set on what I wanted to, I knew what I wanted to accomplish. That was always the goal, ending on your absolute best. That's very humbling that he would say something like that about me. This team's pretty special as a whole. There's a lot of passion all around.
"Every race, when they say 'on your marks,' you see a lot of people jumping up and down and smacking their legs and stuff. For me, at that point in the race, everything I need to do is already done, so my simple routine, I just squat down, I always thank God for the opportunity to race that day. Today, I thanked Him for the opportunity to just be a part of this program. And that's my final step of preparation…and saying all the glory goes to God, good or bad."
Another senior,
Ellie Jindra, also was in an AU uniform for the final time, placing eighth in the women's high jump at 1.70 meters/5-feet-7. Jindra has four career All-American honors.
"Very happy to see
Ellie Jindra leave with another All-American in her fifth-year COVID return, so we're very grateful for that," Logan said.
Ashland's women's five team points put them in a tie for 38
th place.
Logan knows that this day is going to live on in the annals of Ashland University track and field for a long time.
"This will be referenced. Tradition never graduates," said Logan. "This one will be talked about for a long, long time."
AU
TF/DS
