Last Saturday, Oct. 7, the men’s cross country team traveled to Pittsburgh to compete in the Carnegie Mellon Invitational. For head coach Chris Hardie, the race went as expected.

“I think they did what I thought they would do going into the race,” said Hardie. “I’m really happy with that, I think that anytime we can implement a strategy or come up with a strategy and stick with it, that is a very good thing.”

Freshman Mac Colomb led the team with a time of 28:09, which was good for 49th place out of 200 runners. Colomb said that the amount of hills at the course were challenging.

“The more we got into the course the more hills there were, but it was still a good race overall,” Colomb said.

Colomb was honored by the Presidents’ Athletic Conference this week, as he was named the conference’s Rookie of the Week.

Freshman Nate Jecelin finished second out among Waynesburg runners clocking in at 28:50 which was good for 72nd place.

“I thought I did pretty well too because I had [freshman] Matt Durgin with me the whole time during the race and we paced off each other,” said Jecelin. “The race was up and down the whole time. Despite that I think that I ran pretty well.”

Durgin finished third out of all the Yellow Jacket runners with a time of 29:08, placing him 82nd overall. Junior Joel Kuzminski finished fourth out of all the Waynesburg runners, clocking in at 29:45, which got him 100th place. Rounding out the top five was freshman Jordan Payne finishing in 106th place.

Junior Jacob Pryor finished sixth overall for the Jackets at 116th, and freshman Matt Mansfield finished behind Pryor at 117th place to round up the top seven.

Colomb was pleased with how the team adjusted to the course.

“Even though I was under the pressure of seeing the hills and having it be completely unexpected, the team overall did well,” said Colomb. “I personally like to be prepared and know what to expect, but overall the team adjusted accordingly.”

This Saturday, Oct. 14, at the Rowan Interregional Border Battle, a maximum of six men participants will travel to Glassboro, New Jersey. As of right now, the four male runners making the trip are Colomb, sophomore Michael Cappelli, junior Josh Olive and senior captain Matthew Shinkle.

Although most of the runners will not be traveling to Glassboro, New Jersey to participate in the Rowan Interregional Border Battle this weekend, the team looks to prepare themselves for the PAC Championships Oct. 28.

“We are off till the PAC meet which is three weeks away,” said Hardie. “All the runners should have a good week but we won’t be considered a team with just four runners.”

For Hardie, a key component in preparing the few runners that are running this weekend is to equip them with proper training and knowledge of the course.

“This course is flat and it’s going to be the fastest course that we are going to be on this year,” said Hardie. “It is kind of upsetting for the guys that we can’t take because we had all the men travel to Carnegie Mellon [this past weekend] and all the women are going Rowan this weekend, so we can only take a few men due to the amount of money it costs.”