Henderson Leaves UCLA With a Victory

Monique Henderson bowed out with a bow to the crowd at Hornet Field, four years of expectations met after she’d won her first NCAA 400-meter title in a race she called her lone perfect UCLA performance.

Arkansas sophomore Wallace Spearmon Jr. ended his brief but brilliant college career with a tumble at the tape and a world-leading time of 19.91 seconds in the 200, happily heading toward big professional paydays after helping the Razorbacks clinch their 41st NCAA track or cross-country title under Coach John McDonald.

Both exited Saturday as they’d hoped, Henderson bringing the crowd of 10,200 to its feet after her time of 50.10 set meet, personal and Pacific 10 records, and Spearmon closing so fast that his right knee collapsed and sent him sprawling. Whatever else they accomplish -- and Henderson has an Olympic gold medal from the Athens 1,600-meter relay -- they will remember the luster they added to a glittering day for the sport.

“I feel like I really capped off my college career the way I wanted to, and the way other people thought I should,” Henderson said. “Down the backstretch I felt a really bad twang in my hamstring but I sucked it up and finished.

“I figured if I hurt myself, at least I hurt myself running fast.”

Spearmon, who had run a world-leading 19.97 this season but lost that distinction to teammate Tyson Gay’s 19.93 in the semifinal, wasn’t sure he’d won until Gay showed him the scoreboard.

“I saw [Xavier] Carter go and I decided to go with him,” said Spearmon, who added that he’d gotten the blessings of his coach and his parents to turn pro. “I couldn’t ask for a better ending.”

Continuing the theme of happy endings, Candice Baucham completed her UCLA career with a flourish. She broke a 15-year-old meet record with a career-best, school-record and U.S.-leading triple jump of 46 feet, two inches, lifting the defending champion Bruins into the team lead with three events to go.

However, despite having gotten third-place finishes from Jessica Cosby in the hammer throw (209-6) and shotput (54-8 1/4 ) they had no one in the high jump, 5,000 or 1,600-meter relay and were passed by Texas, which had 55 points after a narrow victory over Tennessee in the 1,600-meter relay. UCLA and South Carolina each had 48 points.

If defending pole vault champion Chelsea Johnson hadn’t no-heighted in qualifying the Bruins might have repeated. But they were too happy with what they’d earned on Saturday to think about what might have been.

“Our team is well-rounded, and everybody was backing each other,” said Baucham, who’d finished fifth in the long jump on Thursday. “We’re excited we were able to bring this many athletes and do what we did.... I’m so excited. It’s been a long journey for me.”

USC’s women’s team, which got a fourth-place in the 200 from Alexis Weatherspoon (23.26), finished seventh, with 25 points. The Trojan men, buoyed by junior Jesse Williams’ personal-best 7-6 in adding the outdoor high jump title to his indoor crown and senior Allen Simms’ runner-up finish in the triple jump at 55-10 1/2 , were sixth, with 33 points.

UCLA’s men’s team was 33rd, with eight points, boosted by a fourth-place finish by Brandon Johnson in the men’s 400-meter hurdles (a personal-best 48.59) and a seventh-place finish by Jonathan Williams (49.76) in that race. Kerron Clement of Florida won in 47.56 seconds, setting college, meet and stadium records.

Also of note was LSU’s men’s 1,600-meter relay, which ran a 2:59.59 to set college and meet records and a world-leading time.

But the big sentimental winner was Henderson, who said she was nervous before her race and grew faint afterward.

“My first thought was, ‘Finally, it’s over,’ ” she said. “I looked at my time and I was very happy with that. There was a lot of pressure I was putting on myself. I really just felt like a race where I put it all together.”

UCLA women’s Coach Jeanette Bolden said Henderson had handled the years of pressure “like a true champion. That’s the way to end the story.”

Or, at least, a college career.