Cross Country

The NCAA Midwest Regional Championships, hosted by Bradley University on a 6K course, could be the last meet of the season for Northwestern.

When the Wildcats take the starting gun on Friday, they’ll be attempting to climb into the top two in the team standings, securing an automatic qualifying position in the NCAA National Championships. They are currently ranked 12th in the Midwest Region and would have to surpass at least one of two nationally-ranked squads in Iowa State and Minnesota to continue their season as a team. The top four individuals in the meet who are not on a qualifying team will qualify as well.

“We haven’t had five girls all race well on one day, so we’re just looking at this as a great opportunity to do that,” NU coach April Likhite said.

Even if the Cats are ultimately unable to extend their season, they can enter the offseason with hope for bigger and better things after the season-long emergence of sophomore Jena Pianin.

Pianin has starred for NU this season, finishing first on the team in a majority of the races she’s run. She burst onto the scene with a career day at the Notre Dame Invitational in October, dropping nearly 90 seconds from her previous 5K personal best and taking 20th individually.

She’s continued her string of strong performances throughout the season, with a 33rd-place finish against a field of nearly 300 at the Pre-Nationals meet and a 22nd-place finish in the Big Ten Championships two weeks ago.

“When we were recruiting her during her senior year in high school we knew we wanted her,” Likhite said. “She’s probably one of the most talented girls we’ve ever brought into our program.”

Pianin showed flashes last year, breaking into the team’s top-seven by the end of the season to earn entry into the regional meet, but a stress fracture suffered in her senior year of high school limited her.

“For her to not be able to do what our summer training entails, it affected her,” Likhite said. “She’s definitely a different runner this season than she was last season but there were reasons for that.”

With an offseason to get healthy and train, Pianin’s career has reached new heights and the runner now looks poised to star for the Cats going forward.

“I think Jena has extremely high but very realistic goals,” Likhite said. “Having that mindset is what’s going to make her a great runner and let her do some amazing things for us too.”

To move into one of the automatic qualifying spots as a team this season, NU will need runners beyond Pianin to step up in a major way, which is why the Big Ten Championships — where many Cats set personal bests in a 6K race — was so encouraging.

“I think everybody’s really just trying to buy into the plans our coaches give us, because our coaches wouldn’t tell us to do something we can’t do,” junior Elena Barham said. “We’re really confident and excited about the meet.”

The Cats will start at 12:00 p.m. on Friday in Peoria, Illinois.

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