The defending Presidents’ Athletic Conference champions for indoor track & field had one final tune up this past weekend before gearing up for the PAC Championships Thursday, Feb. 22.

The Waynesburg University women’s track & field team traveled to Kenyon College and tied for third in the meet in scoring, and more importantly beat out the other PAC schools competing.

Head coach Michelle Cross was excited to see the women compete at such a high level, something she has seen them do for quite some time now.

“It’s kind of hard to see how well we do against other Division III schools until you get to a meet that has a smaller field like [this past weekend],” said Cross. “We just had a bunch of people placing in events all over the place and it was just really fun to see them competing.”

A strong suit for Waynesburg over the past few years has certainly been with regard to its long distance team, with veteran runners such as seniors Angie Marchetti and Julie Gerber always running well. This past weekend, Marchetti placed fifth in the 800-meter with a time of 2:24 and second in the mile run with a time of 5:21 for the Yellow Jackets. Meanwhile, Gerber won the 3,000-meter race for Waynesburg.

While the Yellow Jackets performed well at the meet, much of the focus from this meet was getting ready for the PAC Championships later in the week and getting the opportunity to preview the Westminster Titans, a team that is expected to compete closely with Waynesburg.

“I think it was very much a confidence boost for them and they did very well,” said Cross.

Moving to the shorter distances, a standout on the team was junior Cassidy Guiser, who placed third in the 400-meter race with a time of 1:03, while also adding a tenth place effort in the 200-meter race as well. Gusier was just one of the sprinters that recorded a personal best on the day.

“In general, for most of the team, I would say for sprints and jumps it was a day where a lot of people improved and a lot of people scored,” said Cross.

While much of the team scoring came from senior and junior leaders from Waynesburg, a solid group of freshmen have also been making strides and contributing the team’s success. In the past meet, Amber Yauch scored in the top three in both the long and triple jump, while Katherine Fair qualified for the 60-meter high hurdle finals, finishing in third place in the meet.

“Amber Yauch, Katherine Fair and Rebecca Volz – they have definitely done very well. And that’s not to say that the other freshmen aren’t doing good things as well, but those three in particular have done very well,” said Cross. “Kat Fair in particular, her role on the track team is very different than what she did in cross country, it’s fun to see her in more of a sprinting role and she’s more of a sprinting athlete than necessarily a distance one.”

Looking ahead to the PAC Championships Thursday, Cross acknowledged that the path to repeating as champions seems quite difficult, despite being early favorites in the preseason.

“I think that this will be one of the closest championships we’ve had in a long time,” said Cross. “I actually think we’re probably a little bit, if you look at it in straight points, behind Geneva. We’re two very different teams.”