Burrell grad Scherer eager for big finish to Pitt track career after breakout season

Sprinter Nikki Scherer arrived at Pitt two years ago with a plethora of WPIAL and PIAA gold medals, eager to soak up all college life had to offer while still leaving her competition in the dust.

But the Burrell grad quickly found out it wasn’t going to be that easy. The gap between competing against Pennyslvania’s best and some of the best in the nation in the ACC was expansive.

She said she even was a bit intimidated by the seniors on her own team. A change of perspective soon followed.

“To be a successful Division I athlete, track and school had to come first,” said Scherer, who is finishing up her junior year. “When I realized track and school had to come first, everything started to click.”

That was evident at the ACC indoor championships the weekend of Feb. 27. Scherer placed sixth in the 400-meter final — her first appearance in an individual indoor final in her Pitt career — with a time of 54.05 seconds.

The performance had her and coach Alonzo Webb excited to carry the momentum into outdoor season. Of course, outdoor season never happened as conferences across the country canceled their spring sports amid the spread of coronavirus.

Webb, in his 18th season guiding Pitt, was just as disappointed as Scherer. He said he was expecting her to “shock” the ACC during outdoor season.

“It has been a gradual development. I knew it was going to be a process,” Webb said. “But I knew she was going to get there. She got better and better, and I could see this year coming. It’s really unfortunate she couldn’t have shown what she could have done (outdoors) this year.”

The 400 is a relatively new event for Scherer. She ran it once as a sophomore at Burrell just to see if she could break the school record, which she did. After winning WPIAL and PIAA Class AA 100-meter titles that season, she was confident of a repeat as a junior.

When that didn’t happen, she and her event coach, Frank Phelps, decided it was time for her to try the 400 on a more permanent basis. As a senior, she won WPIAL and PIAA Class AA titles in the 400.

But there still was much to learn once she got to Pitt, particularly when it came to the indoor 400. Indoor tracks are shorter, so there was a whole new strategy involved in the race.

“Coach Webb helped me understand how to run a 400,” she said. “There is a race pattern and how to run it: how to run your first curve, how to run the back stretch.”

She increased her finishes at the ACC indoor 400 from 31st as a freshman to 15th as a sophomore to this winter’s sixth. That is what had her and Webb so eager for outdoor season to start. Webb believed she was ready to “go to a different level” outdoors.

“Her confidence is really going to be there now,” he said, “because she made the finals in the toughest conference in the nation.”

Now all she can do is wait. She keeps in tune by running and doing cardio workouts, though her weight training has taken a hit with gyms closed because of the covid-19 outbreak.

Once she can get back on her regular training regimen, Scherer has her eye on a top-three finish in the ACC championships as well as a spot in nationals. More than that, she wants to enjoy herself.

“It goes so fast, and you don’t really appreciate it when you are doing it,” she said, “but the coronavirus makes you appreciate things.”

Webb has no doubt Scherer will close her time at Pitt in memorable fashion.

“There are two different kinds of seniors,” Webb said. “Some just want to be done. They’re just trying to make it through their last year. Then there’s others who just go to another level … and they want to finish on top.

“She’s the latter, in my opinion.”