She remembers the moment vividly. Pietrzyk remembers telling herself, “‘You can’t give up now and just make this where you are going to be the rest of the race. So you have to try to work hard to move up if you can.’”
“So I felt like I could, and I did,” she said.
Although 92nd place still would have been the team’s best finish, it wasn’t the result that Pietrzyk or Keith were expecting, considering her remarkable performances in the prior six races.
While the freshman may not have initially known a goal finishing place for the championship, Keith helped provide context for a standard to measure against.