The Waynesburg University men’s cross country team participated in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Championship Saturday, Oct. 28 at Westminster College.

Every Yellow Jackets runner ran in the event and the team rallied to finish sixth out of 10 teams.

Overall, the goal was for the men’s cross country team was to finish in fifth. Despite not quite reaching that goal, head coach Chris Hardie was pleased with how the meet turned out.

“I’m pretty happy with the performance overall, and they stuck to the game plan for the most part,” said Hardie. “All in all, it was a good performance, but we were going for fifth place and ended up getting sixth.”

Freshman Matt Durgin led all Waynesburg runners with a time of 27:46, which was good enough for 26th out of 118 runners. Freshman Jordan Payne finished second out of all Waynesburg runners, clocking in at 27:59.

Freshman Mac Colomb rounded out the top three with a time of 28:23, which placed him 37th overall.

“I felt pretty confident going into the meet,” said Durgin. “I felt really good about the race and I was satisfied with the time.”

Junior Joel Kuzminski finished 40th overall with a time of 28:39, which was fourth best for the Yellow Jackets. Junior Jacob Pryor finished fifth for Waynesburg with a time of 28:41, which was right behind Kuzminski, who secured the 41st spot.

“I ran a 28 flat with a 52PR, which is pretty good,” said Payne. “It was a good course to run and I thought I did pretty well.”

Freshman Kyle Warmbein finished sixth overall for Waynesburg with a time of 28:59, which was good enough for 58th overall. Rounding out the top seven for the Yellow Jackets was freshman Nathan Jecelin at 28:59.

“We had really good times with runners 1-7 with a spread of 1:13,” said Hardie. “This team can improve and work together because they are really tightly paced.”

As the season progresses toward a meet in Newville in two weeks for the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional Championship, the men will take up to 11 runners.

The top runners for Waynesburg, which mainly consist of freshman, will travel to the regional meet, consists of mostly freshman. Hardie expects the team to improve from their 2016 regional meet.

“In two weeks at the regional meet this team will see an improvement from last year to this year because of the talent we have,” said Hardie. “They are going to do better regionally this year and the goal for this team is to try to get the top 25 in the region which is attainable.”

A key component on preparing the top runners that are going to the meet in two weeks is to make sure they are prepared both physically and mentally for the regional meet.

“I think they have to find a way to elevate at a high level every race instead of going up and down throughout the year,” said Hardie. “They need to find a way to be the best they can be every week which is something the freshman class is showing signs of.”

Consistency is one of the strong points of the team and the times of the top 10 runners show that, according to Hardie. Being consistent at this race will be put to the test as the team prepares for the regional meet that will take place Saturday, Nov. 11, in Newville. The meet is scheduled to start at 12:30 p.m.