Burrell grad Nikki Scherer back to close book on roller-coaster track career at Pitt

Nikki Scherer will be the first to admit it. Her track and field career at Pitt hasn’t gone the way she had hoped.

After winning the PIAA Class AA title in the 400 meters as a senior at Burrell, Scherer figured she would go to Pitt and pick up right where she left off. But it didn’t happen.

She found out in her first collegiate meet that anything she did in high school no longer mattered. After running the 400 in 54 seconds at Shippensburg in the spring, that winter, in an indoor meet with the Panthers, she said she clocked 58 seconds.

Scherer’s tenure at Pitt has been fraught with ups and downs since.

This season, she is back again, a sixth-year competitor who is looking to be at peace with the way she ends her career as a sprinter.

“This is it for me,” she said. “I don’t have another medical redshirt or another covid year after this year. I just want to kind of right my wrongs.

“I don’t want to say I have regrets because I don’t. I just want to do this year for me and just close the book.”

There have been highlights, for sure.

She won the indoor 400 at Penn State during her sophomore season, the outdoor 200 at an meet at Virginia the following season, the indoor 400 at Notre Dame in January 2021 and, in spring 2021, the outdoor 400 at the Tennessee Relays with a personal-best time of 53.75 seconds, eighth fastest in program history at the time.

But the medals and accolades weren’t flooding in as they did in high school. And some circumstances beyond her control didn’t help.

In March 2020, she was coming off her most promising indoor season yet.

She earned second-team All-ACC honors by taking sixth in the 400 at the conference finals with a time of 54.05 seconds — at long last something reminiscent of her PIAA race and perhaps a springboard to long-awaited success in outdoor season.

Then, of course, the covid-19 pandemic shut everything down. Outdoor season was canceled.

Track and field returned in the winter for indoor season, but, with pandemic restrictions still limiting activities, Scherer said, it didn’t feel like a normal season. Then, she and her whole family ended up contracting covid.

As she was just getting back on track and life was regaining a hint of normalcy, in April 2021, Scherer injured her left foot. She continued to compete, but she wasn’t at 100%.

Not to worry. She was going to get another chance: The NCAA granted athletes an extra year of eligibility because of the year lost to the pandemic.

Still, the pain in her foot lingered, and after her spring 2021 outdoor season ended, she got an MRI. The test revealed stress injuries in her left foot. That necessitated taking most of the summer off to let the injury heal.

In fall 2021, her fifth year, the pain in her left foot returned, and this time, surgery was the only alternative. She had a procedure on the navicular bone, which is located in the mid-foot area, in late October, and she needed the next six months to rehab.

Because of the injury, she was able to take a medical redshirt and return for one final go-around in the 2022-23 academic year.

Some lingering pain in her left foot over the summer slowed her training, but she said she has been able to ramp up her work of late and is starting to approach her desired fitness level.

The Panthers opened their indoor season Dec. 3 at Youngstown State. Scherer ran the second leg of Pitt’s winning 4-by-400 relay team, which posted a time of 3:47.82, 9.02 seconds better than runner-up Duquesne.

“I really want to try to get ready over Christmas,” she said. “I can stay and train and try to make up for some time that’s been lost. I feel like I’m starting to come into my own now.”

Through all of that, she finished her undergraduate degree in spring 2021 and now is working on her master’s degree in K-12 curriculum and instruction, which she will finish in the spring. After that, she will spend a year getting certified, with the goal, she said, of becoming an elementary school teacher.

In terms of her goals on the track, Scherer isn’t setting anything in stone. She simply wants to stay healthy, compete at her best and be satisfied with that.

Maybe she didn’t have the star-studded career she expected, but she said she will walk away with no regrets.

“Regardless of how this year goes, I have had a wonderful experience,” she said. “I have absolutely loved Pitt. I am going to be so sad. I know I have probably overstayed my welcome, but I have loved it. I love coach (Alonzo) Webb. I love the staff, I love the team, I love the university and I love Pittsburgh.

“Things haven’t gone exactly the way I hoped. That’s kind of why I wanted to come back so bad this year and give it my best and be OK with just turning the page and being done.”