It’s championship week for all of the Waynesburg University track & field athletes. The Yellow Jacket men’s and women’s track & field teams will be in to Youngstown, Ohio Saturday with hopes of returning to Waynesburg with a Presidents’ Athletic Conference title.

Both teams are coming off a strong performance last weekend at the Kenyon Classic in Gambier, Ohio, with the men’s team placing fourth out of eight teams in the competition. That event was highlighted by sophomore JaWuan Jones placing fourth in the 60-yard dash and senior Blake Feldner placing fourth in shot put.

Like the men’s team, the women also placed fourth at the Kenyon Classic and managed to lock up a few first-place awards at the meet. Freshman Katherine Fair and sophomore Aubrey Wingeart both placed first in their respective categories. The 60-meter hurdles and the one mile run weren’t the only events that shined for the Jackets. Junior Teghan Simonton finished second in the 800-meter dash.

The women’s track & field squad is no stranger to success at the conference tournament, as they’ll be coming in looking for their third straight conference title. For this year’s squad, Wingeart and Fair are two of the young stars as the Jackets strive to maintain their success in recent years.

The Jackets have a mixture of youth and experience on the roster which is essential for a championship weekend. Simonton has been at the top of the leaderboards all year long, and she looks for her third straight finish in the top three.

On the men’s side, they are looking to build on last year’s meet, when it placed fifth out of 10 teams after finishing in eighth place two years ago. One standout in the Jacket’s performance at Kenyon was junior jumper Mike Trax. Trax placed second in the triple jump with a distance of 13.16 meters.

For Trax, the team has evolved in its skills over the course of the semester.

“One trait that has grown in this team is execution.” Trax said. “The team has grown since the beginning of the season making everyone more confident, and with that confidence the team is executing better than previous years.”

The junior pointed to a particular meet as turning point for the men’s team this season

“The SPIRE meet we competed in gave hope for the team,” Trax said. “At the meet there were some Division I and Division II teams and everyone held their own. After that meet the team knew they could compete with a lot of teams and not give into the pressure.”

The Indoor PAC Championships are set to begin at 2 p.m. Thursday.