The Waynesburg University women’s cross country team placed 4th out of the 17-team field this past weekend at the 2017 Dickinson Long and Short Invitational.

The race is not a traditional cross country race, as the day was split into two races for the women, that being a six-kilometer race, the typical distance for collegiate women’s races, and a four-kilometer race, a shorter race for more speed-based runners.

In his 8th year of coaching the men’s and women’s cross country teams at Waynesburg University, head coach Chris Hardie and his coaching staff have had dozens of races to learn from, in terms of strategy and racing.

Hardie brought his team to the race years ago, and thanks to that trip, was able to strategize the race much more effectively going in, thus creating a stronger scoring team.

“We did the race, it might have been five years ago, and at that point it was Grove City and Waynesburg were the top two PAC scores there,” said Hardie. “We really failed in strategy during that race, so I think we learned a lot in recent years about races like this how we need to place our runners.”

This year, Hardie and his coaching staff split the top several runners up to divide them between the four-kilometer and six-kilometer race.

In doing so, the team was able to create a sizeable gap of 52 points between itself and the fifth finishing team, while also pulling relatively closely to regionally and nationally ranked teams in the nation that also ran in the meet.

“If we look at our top five really…they stepped up and did what they needed to do to secure a lot of the front points which helped us be successful,” said Hardie. “Then I think we also had some that were out of that top six, more like seven through 12 range for women, that really brought out their best race.”

The Yellow Jackets were led by senior Angie Marchetti in the 6,000-meter race, who placed 13th out of the 190 runners with a time of 23:17 on the course. Junior Teghan Simonton finished in 16th place and sophomore Malarie Yoder finished in 25th place to round out the top three scoring individuals for the women in the first race of the day.

In the 4,000-meter race, sophomore Taylor Clarkson crossed the finish line first for Waynesburg in 18th place, with senior Elinore Loch finishing closely behind in 25th place. Sophomore Mary Beth Cunningham finished in 49th to be the women’s third and final scorer in the second race for the women.

Looking at the results, Clarkson stood out to Hardie after the race for being the first orange and black representative to finish the four-kilometer race.

“To actually be the top scorer in the four [kilometer race], I don’t know if I would have thought that going in,” said Hardie. “I knew she could run fast and at that level, but she maintained a 6:11 pace through that race and that’s really fast.”

Clarkson admits she felt good during the shortened race and is excited to return to the course in a few weeks when the area hosts regionals for the Mid-East Region.

“It was fast, it was really fast,” said Clarkson. “We didn’t have the hills either that the 6K did, so I’m looking forward to adding in the hills when we run regionals. But it was definitely my type of race this weekend.”

The Jackets are back in action when a select few of undetermined women runners will travel to Carnegie Mellon University for the university’s invitational meet. Start time is scheduled for 11 a.m.