This past weekend, the Waynesburg University women’s cross country team participated in the Bethany College Invitational in West Virginia, and despite resting most of their top runners, the Yellow Jackets finished ninth out of 17 teams.

The Jackets came into this season as the two-time defending Presidents’ Athletic Conference champions. Despite losing key runners and leaders to graduation, head coach Chris Hardie still believes his team can defend its title.

“Leadership is one thing we always talk about in our program,” said Hardie. “It is really important to have the next leader to step up and provide guidance and leadership.”

The Yellow Jackets lost a large portion of its scoring runners after the 2016 and 2017 seasons. Emily and Katie Latimer were members of the 2016 PAC Championship, Julie Gerber and Elinore Loch as well as Angie and Becky Marchetti, who were key members both of Waynesburg’s championship runs, have graduated too.

“We have made it a goal this year to level that leadership out and try to get back to the last two years that we have had and try to win a third conference championship,” said Hardie.

With new leaders stepping up and freshman coming in, Hardie believes that his team can still reach its goal of being one of the top five teams in the region and qualifying for nationals.

“This year we will rely on three new runners, two being freshman and one a transfer student,” said Hardie. “We haven’t had to rely on young runners since 2014, because the team [has since] consisted of mostly veteran and experienced runners.”

Some of the underclassmen had the opportunity to prove themselves this past weekend.

For this meet, Hardie sat his top seven runners to save their legs for the next meet at Allegheny. “Everyone else that ran…did very well,” said Hardie. “Each had an individual plan going into the meet and it worked well.”

Runners were kept to their normal training programs for this meet, which aims to achieve top performance at a certain point in time. Hardie was very pleased with his team’s performance. “After the meet, it showed how deep our roster can be,” said Hardie. “I know I will have runners ready to go if an injury happens.”

One performer that stood out was freshman Monica Kolencik. She was the first Yellow Jacket to finish the race putting her 40th out of 127 runners. Sophomore Alecia Straight finished third for the Yellow Jackets with a time of 28:14. Junior Katie Jones rounded out the top three finishers for Waynesburg, crossing the finish line behind Straight at 28:18.

Hardie had high praises for Kolencik and how she handled the difficult weather conditions.

“This meet was very muddy and slow, and she managed to run about the same time within a week,” said Hardie.

Despite the difficult conditions, Kolencik said she had her mind set on finishing the race.

“I told myself to do my best and finish with everything I have, if I slip then I slip,” said Kolencik.

The team will compete this Saturday at the Allegheny Classic in Meadville, Pa.