You can call them the National Champion Nine.

The nine members of the ASU Rambelles track and field team that headed to the NCAA Division II National Track and Field Championships this week in Charlotte, N.C., will be returning home with the program's first national championship trophy.

By capturing 50 points in their final six events, the Rambelles ran away with the title, beating second place finisher and defending champion Lincoln University by 14 points, 87-73.  And, it was a total team effort.  Senior Aisha "Ice" Adams scored points in all six events she entered, including an individual national championship in the heptathlon.  Senior Chrystal Ruiz scored points in multiple events, senior Andria Nussey rebounded from a poor showing in the long jump to set a new school record and place second in the 800-meters, and senior Celethia Byrd won an individual national championship in the 400-meter dash and finished third in the 200-meter dash, a result that clinched the title for ASU.

"I just said 'thank you Lord,'" Byrd said.  "That is all that was running through my mind.  I was very happy, and to hear my time was a new personal record, it made me feel good.  Most of all, I may not have to run the mile relay.  That's awesome!"

Byrd's points from the 200-meters put the Rambelles ahead by 12 points with only the 4x400-meter (mile) relay left to run.  That meant no team could catch them, regardless of what they did in that final race.  What they did, though, was put their final stamp on the national meet by winning the relay in a school record 3:38.88 with Byrd on the track running the anchor leg.  The result had coaches James Reid, Tom Dibbern and Gary Gabriel yelling, fist-pumping and high-fiving in the stands.

"That is unbelievable," Dibbern said.  "When it's going right, it's going right."

"This is a great feeling," he added.  "It hurt real bad last year when we lost it, but this has totally erased it.  Coaching-wise, I've never had a feeling like this.  It's the best feeling I've ever had coaching.  It's truly worth it."

After confirming that his team had clinched the title, Reid finally calmed down enough to begin the task of texting the great news to just about everyone he knows.

"I asked Coach Dibbern about nine times if he was sure before I called anybody," Reid said.  "I called my wife and told her because they have been following it on the internet.  I called my parents and I called Coach (Kathleen) Brasfield, Coach (David) Noble and a bunch of people who have had a lot of influence on me.  It's still a little surreal right now."

"I just can't say enough about the girls," he added.  "What helped us was nine young ladies busting their butts for three days straight and coming into this year with a goal and wanting to do it.  Even over the last three days when we've had not such good things happen, they have been resilient, not lost sight of the goal and came up big time after time.  I just can't say enough about them."

Meanwhile, the Rams were also in a battle to achieve their goal of finishing in the top 10 at the national meet.  Their day started with junior Tyler Orlando and sophomore Jacob McDonald placing third and seventh in the javelin, gaining eight points for the team and All-America status for themselves.

In the discus, junior Wade Goode also garnered All-America status by finishing eighth and earning a point for his team.  The 4x100-meter relay team of James Howell, Ryan Adkins, Brian Holik and Nick Smith became All-Americans with a sixth-place finish that picked up three points.  Howell also set a new school record with a 45.95 in the 400-meters that was good enough for third place and six valuable points.

The Rams also capped off their national meet in style with a second-place finish in the 4x400-meter relay in 3:06.44, the second-fastest time in school history.  That race finally let junior Terence Holland showcase his talents as, due to weather delays, he was forced to wait until the final event of the meet to get on the track.

"With all that waiting, something good was bound to happen," Holland said.  "I was ready to go last night in the rain, but had to keep the animal in the cage.  This was my one shot and I wanted to make it my best one.  Second-fastest time in school history, you can't get mad about that."

The final race also provided another shot at success for freshman Isidro Garcia, who missed qualifying for the individual 400-meters by mere hundredths of a second.  Now, he is also an All-American.

"That is a great way to finish off the year," he said.  "I'm glad that we came out and competed to the best of our ability.  I went into the race wanting to run a :46, but skipped right past that and ran a :45.7 and that is a big jump for me.  Second place in the nation is really something big."

When the dust had settled, the Rams had also achieved their goal as they finished tied for ninth place with 26 points.

"I'm proud of our girls," Garcia said, "and I'm glad they are going to celebrate a national championship.  But, top 10 in the nation is also something big for the guys and we are really glad to have gotten that high up."

"I think we are going to get a lot of coverage because we won the championship with the women," Reid said.  "But, I don't want to take anything away from the men because they had a great meet.  There has only been a few times when both men's and women's teams have finished in the top 10 at a national meet, and that is something we wanted to do coming in."

"For the guys to do it the way they did it by running that great mile relay was incredible," he added.  "They put it together and made it happen.  It's awesome, totally awesome."

Fun Facts

• Aisha Adams scored 36 points all by herself as she won the heptathlon and also earned points in the 100-meter hurdles, long jump, triple jump, high jump and 400-meter hurdles.

"We finally put it together," she said.  "We were a national championship team last year, but we didn't put it together.  This time we put all the pieces together, we trusted the coaches and we trusted our training.  We just got out there and did what it took to get it done."

• The Rambelles record-setting 4x400-meter relay team that set a new school record was made up entirely of seniors, including Celethia Byrd, Chrystal Ruiz, Andria Nussey and Kris Crockett.

"We were talking earlier about how this was going to be the last time we would race with each other," Crockett said.  "Coach Reid came over to the tent and said 'we don't even need to run this, but we are Angelo State and we always finish, so let's put a stamp on it.  Let's show them why we are national champs.'  We all talked about how the school record was 3:40, so let's go get it.  I feel like crying, I'm not going to lie."

• Jacob McDonald finished seventh in the javelin to earn All-America status while throwing with a blister on his throwing hand that was super-glued to keep it from bleeding.
• On Saturday alone, the Rams and Rambelles set six new ASU records in various events.

Of the 19 ASU athletes that competed at the national meet, 16 earned All-America status.