Both the men and women’s track & field teams for Waynesburg will continue the season this Saturday, traveling to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania for the Dave Labor Invitational. The meet will take place a week after the women’s team placed fifth, and men’s team eighth out of 14 teams in the Bethany Invitational.

“It’s a bigger meet,” said head track & field coach Michelle Cross. “We wanted to go to one that was a little bit bigger and had more teams.”

Cross knew who she was excited to see compete on Saturday for the Yellow Jackets.

“Fingers crossed, this will be the first meet where we will hopefully have JaWuan Jones back,” said Cross. “He pulled his hamstring during indoor [track & field season], and [injuries to] hamstrings tend to be long and finicky creatures.”

A few distance runners for the men’s team will attempt to build off their performances from last weekend. Freshman Silas Mays finished in third place in the 800-meter event. In addition, sophomore Nate Jecelin finished in seventh place for the 1,500 meter event. Cross spoke about the distance athletes when previewing Saturday and said she was excited for the future with those two runners.

“I am really seeing a lot of stuff coming together for the men’s distance, especially with Silas Mays and Nate Jecelin,” said Cross. “I am seeing things kind of come together with them, and I think they’re poised to drop even more time, and they’ve been looking good in practice.”

After shifting discussion to the women’s side, Cross was quick to note another distance athlete that she was excited to watch moving forward. She discussed two of the more prevalent distance runners on the women’s side in Teghan Simonton and Aubrey Wingeart, who each finished in the top eight at last weekend’s meet.

“I’m really excited to watch Teghan, because we haven’t had her in a 5K where she had a terrible amount of competition,” Cross said. “We’re entering her in that [on Saturday], so I’m interested to see how she responds.”

When discussing Wingeart, Cross noted injury recovery as a primary goal moving toward the weekend.

“Aubrey had really good indoor season, and then we hit a speedbump in the road because she got tendonitis in her Achilles,” said Cross. “I’m excited to see how she’ll do in the 1500-meters as we continue to add the miles back into her training.”

Slippery Rock will be the largest meet that each team will experience so far this season. This weekend’s meet will also provide another opportunity to notice strides of improvement, according to Cross.

“Everybody is saying that practices are going pretty well and things are starting to click,” said Cross. “So, you kind of start waiting in expectation to see how that will play out.”