Complete Results
SPOKANE, Wash. – Portland Pilots freshman Trevor Dunbar won the USA Junior Cross Country Championships Saturday earning the right to represent his country at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships on Mar. 28 in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
"Trevor ran a gutsy race,” said head coach Rob Connor. “He was really wiped out with strep throat this week so for him to lead wire-to-wire was pretty impressive.”
Dunbar finished the 8k course with a time of 24:04, a full six seconds faster than runner-up Walter Schafer of Centennial College.
Dunbar, who is redshirting the collegiate indoor season in preparation for the cross country championships, last won a national title in June of 2009, a 2-mile at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Greensboro, N.C.
"Charlie McDonald really did a nice job as well,” said Connor. “He steadily worked his way up through a very deep and talented field."
Depending on how Dunbar recovers, he may run another 3,000-meter at the University of Washington Last Chance indoor meet on Mar. 6, three weeks prior to the World Championships.
The last Pilot runner to compete at the World Championships was Tim Briggs, a Portland freshman, who finished as the top US junior (35th overall) in the 1995 World Junior Cross Championships in England.