It’s a couple of days before the Hasbrouck Heights graduation and Jenn Nass has mixed feelings.
Earlier this week, it was her final few days as a Hasbrouck Heights student before she heads north to Northeastern University where she will be part of the Huskies track and field team.
"I can't believe it," said Nass about her four years at Heights coming to an end. "It's going to be bittersweet. I'm excited about moving on but I will miss everything."
Nass said that she picked Northeastern over the likes of Villanova and Loyola of Maryland since they allowed her to red shirt one year and stay on for five years. She plans on majoring in international business and will need to spend a semester overseas.
"It was the one school that allowed me to take time off," said Nass who added about the lure of international business. "I want to get out of the office and go to weird places."
Before heading to Massachusetts, she looked back on her time while on the cross country and track and field teams over the four years.
And of all of the top moments as part of the Aviators teams, she points to her best time coming during her junior year at the Penn Relays where the 1,600 meter team won their race. "You are going up against the best relay teams and thousands of people are cheering for you," said the senior.
After her junior season, she hit a bump in the road to start her senior year. As it turned out she suffered a stress fracture in her groin last summer that cost her the entire cross country season. "It was pretty upsetting," said Nass.
But after recuperating for three months, the last semester during the outdoor track and field season could not have gone better for Nass and made up for a fall cross country season. She finished eighth in the Group 1,400 meter race with a time of 59.46.
And her Heights career ended on a high note as her teammates on the 1,600 relay registered their best time of the season at the last meet, the State Meet of Champions in Old Bridge. Nass along with Nickie Inglesby, Marissa Romano and Daniella Macera finished with the team's best time of the season with a 4:06.55. "It was great and it showed that we belonged with the best relay teams," said Nass.
During the four years at Heights she has been part of several title winning girls cross country and track and field teams including the last three years winning the county group team title in outdoor track and the last three years winning the Bergen cross country division title.
One of the biggest titles came during her sophomore year when Heights just started its cross country teams in 2008. It was the first year that the school had a cross country program, but the girls on the Bergen County Group D team title at Darlington in Mahwah. Nass would finish 10th overall in the individual race. "It was the first year that we had a program," said Nass. "It was a small team and nobody had heard of us."
That year she ran a 22:07 in the county group race, one of her best cross country time. In her junior year Heights again won the Group D team title.
As the final races kept coming, the senior kept remembering that this could be the last race together especially with her relay team. "It's hard and it was always in the back of my mind," said Nass about running her last races in the orange and black.