The Waynesburg University cross country team ran its fourth race of the season  this past Friday. The men’s team had two runners finish in the top five, and had a freshman finish in the top-20. The women’s team had a senior, who has yet to place top-25, run ‘run a personal best in her college career. The men’s team finished fourth out of seven, and the women’s team finished fourth out of nine teams.

Following the meet, Head Coach Chris Hardie believes now is the time to train the hardest, as Hardie wants his runners ready for the ever-approaching postseason

“It’s going to be a relatively hard training week.  Only a few runners are racing at Pre-nationals, so most of the team will have two to three quality workouts and they will be difficult,” Hardie said. “They have shown they have the mental toughness and the resiliency to push even harder this week so we can make a late peak prior to conference and regionals.” 

This race was a Presidents’ Athletic Conference preview race, where the Yellow Jacket athletes got a good look forward to the championship race.  

The men’s team had graduate student Quintin Weaver finish second and senior Andrew Kasper finish fourth overall. Freshman Lucas Means finished 19th overall, which was his best placing in his young collegiate career. Means was pleased with how he raced, but still thinks he could do better. He also credits Kasper for helping him with his improvement. 

“It feels exciting because I’m a freshman…, but I didn’t do as good as I wanted to do,”Means said. “Kasper has definitely helped me especially with that race, running side by side.” 

The women’s team had senior Alyssa Ambrisco place 22nd and sophomore Reagan Pettis place 24th. The women’s race only had 82 women racing, which was a lot smaller than their previous race. Ambrisco also ran a personal best of her career, running a time of 26:30,24. She shared her thoughts on what was different about this race. 

“It was our PAC preview, and I was excited to run and see where I was at,”Means said. “I also had Reagan Pettis pacing me the entire time, I give her so much credit for my performance and keeping my mentality positive.” 

The Yellow Jackets will travel to Big Springs High School on Oct. 7, where they will be competing in the Dickinson Pre-National Meet.