Seattle Pacific University Athletics

TUKWILA -- Jessica Pixler, who won four of her nine career NCAA Division II championships during calendar year 2009, was named the Female Track Athlete of the Year in the Open Division by Pacific Northwest Association of USA Track & Field at its annual awards banquet on Saturday night.

Seattle Pacific senior Pixler (Sammamish, Wash./Eastlake HS) started ’09 by winning the mile and the 5,000 meters at the NCAA indoor championships last March in Houston. The mile title was her third straight, and the 5K crown was her first.

Then in May at NCAA outdoors in San Angelo, Texas, Pixler won the 1,500 meters for the second time in her career. She wrapped up the year in November by capturing her third consecutive NCAA D-2 cross country title, racing to the victory in Evansville, Ind.

The other two finalists for Saturday’s award were University of Washington distance stars Katie Follett and Mel Lawrence. The awards banquet took place at the Embassy Suites.

Pixler now has nine NCAA championships altogether: three in cross country, four in indoor track and two in outdoor track. Last Saturday, despite battling a case of shingles, she set the school and Great Northwest Athletic Conference records in the mile when she posted a time of 4:33.46 in winning that event at the UW Invitational.