Before the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Championships, the Waynesburg University women’s track & field team competed in the Bethany Mini Meet last Wednesday.
According to head coach Michelle Cross, the meet was supposed to be a little more laid back to decrease the stress that has been put upon her athletes.
“This year it was only a week out [from PAC Championships],” said Cross. “So, we really used it as a practice.”
This meet wasn’t highly attended and Cross also said it was the final chance to get seed times for certain athletes heading into conference championships.
The seed times that were needed were for two senior runners, Julie Gerber and Elinore Loch. The duo placed first and second respectively, achieving the seed time they set out to get with Gerber crossing in 4:59 and Loch finishing with a time of 5:02.
“For [the championship] I’ll be running the 10k, the 1,500-meter and the 5k,” said Gerber. “Although the 1,500-meter isn’t my normal event that I do, I understood the reasoning for it.”
Gerber and Loch were also a part of the 4×800-meter relay team that hit the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) standard.
“The 4×800 was just kind of for fun,” said Gerber. “I haven’t gotten to do a relay since high school and then we hit the time for ECAC’s.”
The two other members of that team that competed in the event were fellow senior Angie Marchetti and junior Teghan Simonton. The two distance runners also competed in the open 800-meter run, with Marchetti placing first at 2:20 and Simonton second at 2:25 – which was fast enough to set a personal record.
Simonton, who is primarily a 5k runner performed surprisingly well in the 800-meter according to Cross.
“For whatever reason, Teghan does really well [in the 800] when she trains long distance,” said Cross. “I have absolutely no idea why her body reacts strangely to that. It took us three years to figure that out because its vey counterintuitive.”
Simonton sees running as a mental game and thinks that training with longer distance has built her endurance and allowed her to enjoy shorter distance events.
“My training is a lot more focused this year,” said Simonton. “I used to be 1,500-meter and 5k but now I’m 5k and 10k. So, I think mentally the 800 is fun because you know it’s going to be over really quickly.”
Loch and Simonton’s performances impressed Cross to the point where she has to rethink the strategy going into the PAC Championships, with Loch running the 400-meter hurdles in addition to the 1,500 and 4×800.
“I still don’t understand why Teghan can run as fast as she can in the 800,” said Cross. “Ellie has not really trained for the 400-meter hurdles and she ran it once and came out with the top time in conference.”
Another notable performance came from junior Cassidy Guiser who finished second in the 100- meter dash and third in the 200-meter dash.
The Yellow Jacket’s next competition will be the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Championships hosted by Westminster College Wednesday April 25 and Thursday April 26. After that, the team will compete in an open invitational hosted by Ohio University May 4.