For the third straight time this season, the men’s cross country team was paced by freshman talent.

Last Saturday, Sept. 15, the men’s cross country team participated in its third meet of the 2017-2018 season. Waynesburg traveled to the Allegheny Cross Country Classic in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and placed eighth with a total of 235 points.

Men’s cross country head coach Chris Hardie was impressed with his team’s performance in the event.

“I was really happy with the competitive side of the race and I think they competed really hard,” said Hardie. “They prepared themselves for this race, and it was one of the biggest races in our area for this weekend.”

Although there were bright spots with the team over the weekend, Hardie said there are still things the team needs to improve upon.

“I was not happy with two things,” said Hardie. “One, was our pacing was really poor and [second], our runners went out on their own.”

Freshman Mac Colomb registered his third top finish out of all the Waynesburg runners with a time of 22:14. Colomb finished 42nd out of 133 runners in the competition.

Colomb’s classmate, Matt Durgin, found the finish line with a time of 22:39, which was 47th overall. Durgin’s time on paper was good enough for second out of the 10 Waynesburg runners at the meet.

Junior Joel Kuzminski finished with a time of 22:46, which was third best for all Waynesburg men’s cross country runners.

Although Colomb led the Yellow Jackets, he said he was not content with his outing.

“Individually I performed okay, I didn’t do exactly what I wanted to,” said Colomb. “Our goal is to finish third this season and coach Hardie planned it out that everyone has to hit the 5:40 mile mark to reach third in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference.”

Durgin was pleased with his performance overall, but was not necessarily happy about his pace. “I got top 70, I ran a decent time for a four-mile race,” said Durgin. “I think I went a little too fast the first mile and I felt that on the hills in the next couple miles.”

Freshman Nathan Jecelin crossed the finish line with a time of 22:53, which was fourth best for the Yellow Jackets and 48th overall. Jacket freshman Kyle Warmbein rounded out the top five Waynesburg runners with a time of 23:28, which was 54th best.

Seven of the 10 Waynesburg men’s cross country runners finished two minutes apart from each other. Five out of the seven runners were freshman, which bodes well for the team in the future, according to Hardie.

Even though the men were in the middle of the pack, coach Hardie and the team plan to work hard to achieve their goal, which is third in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference.

“A main goal for us is to stay in the top half of each race,” said Hardie. “Two weeks from now we go to Dickinson and we are really going to amp it up, so for us to stay in the top half, it is going to be a goal. And in our off week, we are going to cut the workouts short to let the runners recover a little bit.”

The Waynesburg men’s cross country team will have a week of rest before returning to action on Saturday, Sept. 30. The Yellow Jackets will travel to Newville, Pennsylvania, next for the Dickinson Long-Short Invitational, which starts at 10:30 a.m.