After having a weekend off, the Waynesburg University women’s cross country team participated in the

NCAA Division III Mideast Regional Championship at DeSales University for a chance to send runners to nationals.

The Yellow Jackets placed 15th out of the 47 regional teams present.

Freshmen runners Aubrey Wingeart and Gloria Reed were the top two performers for the Yellow Jackets. The freshmen duo crossed 40th and 45th out of 341 competitors. Wingeart was awarded freshman all-region honors.

This is the youngest team that the Yellow Jackets have competed with at the regional meet in recent years. Assistant coach Michelle Cross wanted the young team to go all out on every opportunity they got.

“Our team, minus two runners, is all freshmen and sophomores,” said Cross. “We emphasized that they needed to be able to seize opportunities even if they were tired.”

Going into the meet, the Yellow Jackets were ranked ninth in the region. Cross believed the team could finish better depending on the course’s condition.

“All the times were slow and the conditions were crazy,” said Cross. “We knew it was going to be tight and that our team could have scored anywhere from fifth to 15th place.”

In past regional meets, the weather has not been anything like Cross has seen. However, it usually is beneficial for the Jackets.

“The weather is never great, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Cross. “But in years past it has benefited to the grittiness of our team.”

Senior runner Teghan Simonton also agreed that the conditions of the course were not ideal.

“The last mile was like ice skating because of the mud,” said Simonton. “There were parts where you would just sink down which caused girls to fall.”

Given this was Simonton’s last collegiate race of her career, she approached it in a different way.

“I wanted to enjoy my last race,” said Simonton. “I tend to get anxious, but I didn’t want that to get into the way.”

The Yellow Jackets also had to battle injuries throughout the race.

“Injuries mostly affected our two seniors,” said Cross. “We were able to figure out some things for Liz Trump, but not Simonton.”

Cross believes that Simonton would have performed better if she was fully healthy.

While battling through her injury, Simonton was the fifth Yellow Jacket to cross the finish line. Her performance was unusual for the veteran runner.

“I am usually the second or third one to cross the finish line,” said Simonton. “I ended up fifth and it ended up being my slowest race.”

The top two runners, Wingeart and Reed, have never competed at this type of regional race.

“Aubrey and Gloria have never run in a meet that was this cold and competitive,” said Cross. “I think that contributed to their nerves, but now they are more experienced.”

After watching Wingeart and Reed perform, Cross is excited for what they can do next year. “Reed and Wingeart learned how to race it and the opportunities they were close to,” said Cross. “Hopefully that will make them hungry for next year.”

After finishing 15th, the Yellow Jackets failed to qualify for nationals and therefore the NCAA Mideast Regionals were the last race of the season.