Millersville's Janiuk ready for NCAA cross country meet

Whether she wants to or not, Morgan Janiuk remembers the race as if it were yesterday.

It was just over two years ago in the 2022 PSAC cross country championship meet at Mansfield. Janiuk, then a Marauders junior, was running seventh in the lead pack with the finish line well within sight.

But, with roughly 200 meters to go, Janiuk's race— and life — changed in an instant. She collapsed with a suspected case of heat exhaustion and, despite numerous attempts to right herself, she eventually settled for crawling across the finish line. She ended up in 32nd place, nearly three minutes behind the winner.

"That was really devastating," Janiuk recalled last week, during preparations for her latest challenge — a trip to Saturday's NCAA Division II Championships in California. "It took me a long time to mentally get over that. Knowing where I was when I fell has always been in the back of my head. I was running with those girls in the front and I knew I could do it."

What Janiuk didn't know was if she could do it again.

"I went into a mental rut after that and was scared that it might happen again," she said. "I kept getting disappointed in myself because I knew what I could do, but it wasn't happening for me."

The long road back to the elite began with regular-season races and eventually led to the 2023 PSAC meet, where she finished 10th, earning First Team All-PSAC honors.

But that wasn't enough. With an extra season of eligibility thanks to her COVID-19 shortened 2020 freshman season, Janiuk decided to return to competition this fall while taking one final class to finish her degree in Applied Disability Studies and graduate in December.

'Unfinished business'

"I think she had a little bit of unfinished business," Marauders cross country coach Andy Young said. "For us, it was a great thing to have somebody that strong who wanted to come back and do it again."

Janiuk, who was a walk-on for Young after only beginning her cross country career as a senior at Boyertown, where she ran track for four years, has taken full advantage.

"If I had the eligibility, I was going to use it," said Janiuk, now a redshirt (or fifth-year) senior. "This has been the best part of my life."

And, it keeps getting better, with one more opportunity yet to come.

She finished second at last month's PSAC meet at Kutztown and two weekends ago matched that finish at the NCAA Atlantic Regional Championship at Lock Haven. She crossed the line in 20:42.4, just one second shy of the MU record and seven seconds behind winner Anna Igims of Slippery Rock, who had beaten her by 32 seconds two weeks earlier at the PSAC meet.

The runner-up finish qualified Janiuk for a spot in the NCAA Division II race, to be held this Saturday in Sacramento. She'll be the first MU runner to appear in the race since 2010.

"I'm still kind of in shock that I'm actually going," said Janiuk, who said she's never traveled west of Pittsburgh.

A top-40 finish at the NCAA meet means Janiuk would leave Millersville with the title of All-American.

"That would mean so much to me and be really amazing because I didn't even know this was possible for me," Janiuk said. "To finish my college career with that would be a huge accomplishment."

Especially so, given the path she had to take to even get the chance.