TicketsCINCINNATI – Cincinnati native and freshman cross country student-athlete Abby Sewell will make program history this weekend as the first Bearcat to race in the World Athletics Cross Country Championships.
The race is Saturday at 10:55 a.m. ET in Tallahassee, Fla., with coverage presented by NBC Sports on Peacock.
Sewell, a graduate of Mercy McAuley High School, finished fourth on Dec. 6 at the USATF U20 Championships in Portland, Oregon, with a 22:03.1 mark in the 6K.
She said the opportunity first presented itself when UC cross country coach Lucas Rothenberger proposed it after the NCAA Regionals, where she also earned All-Great Lakes Regional honors after finishing 12th with a 20:18.9 clip in the 6K.
“It was a pretty cool opportunity, and I didn’t know when I’d have another chance to do it, so why not?” Sewell said. “I had never been to Oregon.”
But running was not something that came to Sewell until her sophomore year of high school.
“I had never actually run before that,” she said. “My first 5K ever was actually a 32:10. My sophomore year PR was 24:56, and the next year it was around 23, and then my senior year, when running started to get real, it was down to 18. Those five minutes were when I decided ‘oh, running is something I maybe want to do in college.’”
When it was all said and done, Sewell finished her career as the Runner of the Year from both the Cincinnati Enquirer and Girls Greater Catholic League. This year, she was UC’s third-highest finisher in every race, recording two top-five finishes and 43rd in the loaded Big 12 Championships.
“I definitely didn’t expect to do as well as I did,” she said of her freshman season. “It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the process, meeting the team and training with everybody in a new environment. The training load was more than I had ever done before, but the process made the outcomes even better than what they were. I didn’t expect to place in the region or anything.”
Sewell admits she was hesitant about coming to UC simply because she was not sure about staying so local. She says that as she went through the process, it felt like the right place after all.
Her love of red did not hurt, either.
Sewell is majoring in marketing and keeping her options open, listing social media and sports as two potential options, albeit with more than enough time to decide.