Nation's top 3,200 runner continues to win despite allergies and expectation.
Allergies got the better of
Sarah Baxter at the prestigious Arcadia Invitational earlier this month. But fortunately for the fantastic sophomore distance runner from
Simi Valley (Calif.), nothing or nobody else did. Not before or since, for that matter.
Sarah Baxter outlasted Laura Hollander
in the best 3,200 race of the season
on April 7 in Arcadia.
Photo by Kirby Lee
Baxter ran the nation’s top 3,200-meter time that night, winning in 10 minutes, 8.02 seconds over a very game
Laura Hollander of
Marina (Huntington Beach, Calif.).
Hollander knocked more than a minute off her best from last year to place second in 10:10.51. They are still the two best times in the nation this outdoor season – by a considerable amount.
In fact, the next two times by
North Central (Spokane, Wash.) junior Katie Knight (10:20.11) and
Buchanan (Clovis, Calif.) junior Hagen Reedy (10:21.68) were also run at Arcadia.
“I didn’t expect to just cruise,” Baxter said after the race. “I knew I had to work for it. … She’s a great runner and she pushed me every step. I know the whole time she’d be with me. I just gave what I had left at the end.”
Afterward, Baxter was barely able to finish a sentence without plugging her nose or sneezing.
“I get allergies bad every year around this time,” Baxter said. “They don’t affect how I race however. Only after I stop.”
Nothing has stopped Baxter from winning in her young but already illustrious career. She won at Arcadia and the California state meet in the 3,200 as a freshman and has captured two state cross country crowns. She also won the Nike national cross country championship in Portland in December.
Baxter has beat a lot of superb runners along the way, but perhaps more impressive has been her ability to shut down expectation and comparison. Because of her small size, decisive running style and modest personality, she has been compared to one of the great prep distance runners in recent history, Jordan Hasay, now a sophomore at Oregon.
As a prep, Hasay recorded the all-time U.S. top 1,500 time of 4:14.50 and ranked second in the 3,200 (9:52.13). She also ranks among the Top 10 in the 1,600 (4:39.13, fifth), 2 mile (10:07.65, seventh) and 3,000 meters (9:19.6, eighth).
“It’s an honor to be mentioned with Jordan,” Baxter said. “But I’m just trying to make my own mark. ... She's my hero because she was an amazing runner. She always won and she was running for fun."
