In sports, great athletes are remembered by their accomplishments.

For Angela Bizzarri, her competitiveness and running style is described by a simple phrase.

“Compete when it counts,” Bizzarri said. “It is all about getting up for the things that matter, the big meets.”

On Saturday, the senior distance runner added to an already long list of accomplishments that attest to her ability to get up for the big meets. Bizzarri took home the indoor 3,000 meters national title with a personal-best time of 8 minutes, 57.40 seconds.

She is now a nine-time All-American, a national champion in cross country and the defending outdoor 5,000 meters national champion. She also won two Big Ten indoor titles earlier this year (3,000 meters and 5,000 meters) and now owns a total of seven school records.

Bizzarri said she is not necessarily motivated by winning, but is motivated by the people supporting her to do well.

“Usually it’s just coaches and family supporting you, which helps motivate you to do well and to make running and life easier,” Bizzarri said.

“The end results have been great, but at the same time you want to be able to enjoy the end result, so if you have family, coaches and teammates to be with you that makes the end result more fun.”

The senior won her third national championship by breaking her own school record in the event by 13 seconds and edging Iowa State’s Lisa Koll by just more than one-tenth of a second.

For most of the race, Bizzarri sat in third behind Villanova’s Sheila Reid and Koll. But in the final lap, Bizzarri used her signature kick to clinch her third national title. Bizzarri said Koll’s strategy was to wear out Bizzarri so she would not be able to use that kick at the end.

“Generally, the last 800 meters of the race are my best, where people see that if I am still close, I will generally end up winning,” Bizzarri said.

“The last 200 meters of the race I was leading Koll slightly, but being in front I didn’t even realize that she was closing in on me. It was kind of scary not being able to see how close she was to me at the end.”

Head coach Tonja Buford-Bailey said Bizzarri’s kick is what separates her from other great runners.

“Angela Bizzarri is hands down the best distance runner in the history of this school,” Buford-Bailey said. “She has that extra little kick that elevates her to a completely different tier, which a lot of other girls can’t keep up with.”

As Bizzarri and the rest of the Illini prepare to start the outdoor season at the Horned Frog Invitational in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday, she said she will take the same approach into her last collegiate season as the rest of them.

“You set a lot of little goals to help you get to your big goal, so you feel like you are succeeding throughout the year, no matter if you’re not,” Bizzarri said. “I want to get as fit as I can by the time I need to be and to reach at those little goals.”

Bizzarri said she has taken a step back to look at all of her accomplishments from time to time, but she has admitted that the magnitude of her accomplishments has not fully set in.

“Hopefully when I look at these things down the line, I can respect the fact that I have put so much hard work in and I was able to be very successful in something that I put a lot of effort into,” Bizzarri said. “I hope that I will be able to carry that over to the other things I do in life. No matter what struggles you have later in life, you worked hard at something and you gave it your all.”