Last weekend, the men’s cross country team ran in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference championships finishing fifth out of nine teams. The conference championships ran at the Greene County Airport.

After setting a ‘stretch goal’ of finishing in third, head coach Chris Hardie said he wasn’t devastated by the fifth place finish.

“Throughout the race, they put themselves in a position to do that and they fell just short,” Hardie said. “It’s about the closest finish possible, because we had a four person pack – four in a row at the end – if somehow they could have jumped two guys, it could have switched that whole race around and we could have finished third.”

The sophomore success that the Jackets found throughout the season continued at PACs with Jordan Payne finishing 15th with a time of 28:37.03.  Behind him, were classmates Nate Jecelin 22nd, Matt Mansfield 23rd, Mac Colomb 25th and Matt Durgin 26th.

Hardie was pleased with the performance of the sophomore class, not only Saturday but also as the season progressed.

“We’ve definitely seen them step up this year, which is important, but there is still a lot more to go,” said Hardie. “So, they need to continue to progress this off season and then going into next year I’m sure they will, but it’s been a pretty consistent group the whole year through.”

Payne earned honorable mention All-PAC along with being named the male athlete of the week at Waynesburg for his efforts over the weekend. Hardie said he feels that Payne grew throughout the season and it was apparent during the championship.

“He’s very smart with pace, he understands he doesn’t need to come out super fast,” said Hardie. “He save energy, he reserves energy really well and a lot of the guys feed off that so I think he’s a calming influence there but a real consistent performer who’s really grown this year.”

Looking ahead, the men’s team will race one more time at the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional Championships. At regionals, Hardie said he hopes the team will place 23rd in the region.

“I think the goal is, and it’s a weird number, but I think 23 in the region is what we picked earlier in the year,” said Hardie. “I really think they have a top 20 in them, which is what I keep talking to them about in the past week here. We’ve never done that in the program here; we’ve never been able to get into the top 20.”

Reflecting on the season the men’s cross country program had, Hardie said a large part of their success could be attributed to the hard work of the coaching staff.

“Laurel Rush handles the men’s training and she changed up her training this year,” said Hardie. “I think it’s worked really well, so I think we’ve taken some notes on that, I give a lot of credit to her for the development of those guys.”

The next race for Waynesburg will be the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional Championships, which will be held at DeSales University in Center Valley on Nov. 10 starting at noon.