The Waynesburg University men and women’s track & field programs will continue their season this Saturday at West Virginia University. Unlike last weekend at the Muskie Duals, in which only a part of the two teams went to compete, this weekend everyone who can participate will take part in the meet according to head coach Michelle Cross.

“The entire team is going to go because it is going to be 55 degrees and sunny,” said Cross. “So, I am excited for the nice weather because people always tend to do better in the nicer weather, and I am excited for the whole team to be present so we can kind of get a sense of the strength of our full team.”

There are some new events for the Yellow Jackets to compete in this outdoor season, starting with the 400-meter hurdles on the men’s side.

“I am excited to get an idea of how we are in the new events like 400-meter hurdles, we have some 400-meter hurdlers on the guys side that I am curious to see how they will do once we are fully moved into outdoor and stuff like that,” Cross said.

The men’s team is projected to finish in fifth place in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference for the outdoor season, which is exactly where the team finished in this year’s indoor season.

“I would love to see us make some kind of jump up from that even if it’s just by one place,” said Cross. “I would love for by the end of the year to get into the top three, but it is really hard to say right now because we are still at the beginning of the season.”

As for the women’s side, according to Cross, the pressure is on yet again to win the PAC title after finishing in third place in indoors.

“I am sort of feeling the same way as I was at the beginning of indoor,” said Cross. “I kind of am feeling the pressure of being voted to win it, because I knew that we have lost some depth, but I didn’t know how that was going to truly affect the team and that is sort of coming out from indoor in that we are in the same situation.”

After last weekend’s meet, Cross knows that there are still a lot of things to tweak if either team wants to do well at PAC’s later this spring.

“We really need to work race strategy,” said Cross. “Just from seeing some of the decisions that our athletes made in the races with how they were pacing and where they positioned themselves just really clues into me that we need to talk and have more discussions about that.”