CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 26, 2018) – A week before the biggest race of his life, Landon Huslig was prophetic. "It's a hurdle race," he said. "Anything can and will happen."

It did for the Oklahoma Christian standout on Saturday in the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships. When the prohibitive favorite in the 400-meter hurdles final stumbled over a hurdle early in the race at the Irwin Belk Complex, Huslig seized control and never let up.

With "the lean of a lifetime" (as OC head coach Wade Miller called it) at the finish line, Huslig edged Chad Miller of American International (Mass.) to win in a school-record time of 49.67 seconds.

"I don't even know what to say," Huslig said. "I don't know. Anything happened. I know I can't control what anyone else does but I can control what I do. I just went as hard as I can for as long as I can."

Huslig's national title was the first by an OC athlete at the Division II level and the first ever won by a Great American Conference athlete in any sport. It was also the fifth career All-America honor earned by Huslig, who was third in the 400 hurdles at last year's Division II outdoor meet. 

His national title was the first by an OC athlete since 2014, when Austin Wallace won the decathlon at the National Christian College Athletic Association Outdoor Championships in Rome, Ga. It was the 37th individual or relay national title in the program's history, with the first coming in 1966, when Dick Gray won the NAIA long jump championship.

Huslig, a one-man OC team at the Division II meet, earned 10 team points with the win, giving the Eagles a 25th-place finish among the 112 schools represented at the meet.

Two years ago, Huslig also qualified for the Division II meet in the 400 hurdles, but failed to reach the final, losing in a preliminary race to Khallifah Rosser of California State-Los Angeles, who went on to win the title. Rosser missed last year's national meet due to injury, but posted the only sub-50-second times in Division II this season, including a 49.23-second clocking in the prelims on Thursday. Huslig won his prelim and was third overall at 50.65 seconds.

Huslig knew Rosser was the favorite and was OK with that.

"Rosser is a fantastic athlete, an incredible talent. He has done so much for Division II track and field," Huslig said. "I was just relaxed going into the race. He was going to do him. I was going to do the best I can and that's what I did. That was on me. I felt so calm."

Huslig's plan was to go hard from the start and he did, putting himself among the leaders early in the race. Rosser caught a hurdle on the first curve, though, and fell, essentially making it anyone's race to win.

So that's what Huslig did. He led down the backstretch and through the final curve before Chad Miller pulled even. From then on, it was a match race. Huslig clipped the final hurdle, but it didn't break his stride and the two – running in adjacent lanes – dueled to the finish line. Huslig's lean was ever-so-slightly better, giving him the win by .05 of a second.

"He got neck-and-neck with me and I knew I was in this race," Huslig said. "I kicked hard. I had no mental thought in that race. It was go hard and go harder. He came on me so strong at the end and it took everything I had to keep him off. That's the hardest I've ever gone."

At the finish line, Huslig fell and injured his right arm, but he said the adrenaline was flowing, "so it doesn't hurt. I'm too happy right now."

Wade Miller praised assistant coach Tony Wallace for coming up with the winning strategy for Huslig.

"Landon executed the race plan that he and coach Wallace designed and it paid off in the biggest way possible," Wade Miller said. "He was cool under pressure over the last few hurdles and had the lean of a lifetime at the finish! Coach Wallace and Landon have been such a great hurdle team and deserve so much credit for working, developing and cultivating such a great moment. We are really proud of all of our assistant coaches and the work and love they pour into our athletes."

Huslig's goal entering the season was to break 50.33 seconds in the event. He reached that goal at the Oxy Invitational in Los Angeles on May 12, running 50.32 seconds. He never dreamed he'd go under 50 seconds, and he gave credit to OC's coaches – Miller, Wallace, Jeff Bennett, Phillip Dale and Brandon Jackson – for believing that he could.

Huslig broke Bennett's 49-year-old record in the event last May and has lowered the mark four more times since then.

"I can't stress about how much the coaching staff has helped me," Huslig said. "We have the best staff in Oklahoma. They have done so much for me. Just the fact that they believed in me when I didn't believe in myself has meant so much."

It's traditional for a coach from the staff of the event winner to present the awards to the top eight finishers, and Tony Wallace did the honors for the 400 hurdles. When Huslig's name was announced as the winner, he leaned down and hugged Wallace, who first coached Huslig when Huslig was a freshman at Deer Creek High School in Edmond.

"I cannot say enough about how much I appreciate him," Huslig said. "He's taught me so much. We spent hours and hours training and practicing for years. I don't understand why he didn't give up on me.

"Coach Wallace, for him to hand that trophy to me, it was like a dream. We had dreamed about this moment and talked about it. He told me I would have to train as hard as I could and surpass myself. He told me I could."

Video of the 400-meter hurdles at the Division II Championships: https://youtu.be/DZwEHgwhIOk