Last Saturday, as the Illinois women’s cross country team won its first-ever Midwest Regional title, freshman Angela Bizzarri led the Illini with a second-place overall finish with a time of 20:47. Bizzarri, a native of Mason, Ohio, has been the Illini’s best runner all season.

Coming out of Mason High School, many coaches didn’t know how Bizzarri would do at the Big Ten level, but she has quieted the doubters.

On Oct. 29 at the Big Ten Championships, Bizzarri’s second-place finish was the best recorded freshman finish at the Big Ten meet in program history.

Preparing for the upcoming NCAA Championships on Nov. 20, Bizzarri talked to the Daily Illini about what her freshman season has been like.

Question: What do you think has surprised you the most about this year? Did you think you could accomplish this much when you signed with Illinois?

Answer: I think it surprised me what a difference it makes running with people every day that are pushing you. It really makes you better; it makes you a lot better than you realize it does. Going into a race, you don’t realize how in shape you are until you are running faster than you ever have.

Q: Has there been a lot of pressure on you this season?

A: Coming into the season, I didn’t really know how I was going to do, so there wasn’t that much pressure on me per se. My goal coming into the season was to make the traveling squad, top seven, so I didn’t know how fast I would run. So it’s turned out really well. I’ve surpassed my goals.

Q: As the team’s front runner, is it hard when you don’t really have any one to run with?

A: No, because there are actually a lot of people. During the race on Saturday, the whole time, Billy (Stephanie Simms) was right behind me for most of the race. There’s always someone there from your team pushing you.

Especially the beginning of the year, because I would key off Billy the first mile, I would run with Billy and see how I felt after that. Just having someone there to base yourself and see how you’re doing off of them, it really helps.

Q: What made you want to come to Illinois?

A: I really liked the team aspect, and I really liked coach Harvey’s training. I knew a lot of teams would put too many miles on me at first and I wouldn’t really be able to handle that, and her training’s really helped me to not break down and be able to work with lower mileage than most people run on and be able to succeed with it.

Q: Why did you decide to major in biomedical engineering?

A: It’s kind of combined a lot of different things. With it I can go into engineering or some kind of medical related field. It had a lot of opportunities.

Q: Have you decided on a goal for Nationals on Monday?

A: I think I would like to be an All-American, and hopefully, I run faster on the course than I did last time.