The Waynesburg University women’s cross country team concluded its 2017 season on Saturday, Nov. 11, when it placed seventh at the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional Meet, scoring 264 points in the race.

The programs highest goal of the season was to have the entire team qualify for the Women’s NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships, and despite not accomplishing such a lofty goal, the season was still wildly successful according to head coach Chris Hardie.

“I would probably put this team up there as one of the best teams ever by far,” said Hardie. “The culture has changed and the effort changes every year.”

The women’s team captured its second consecutive Presidents’ Athletic Conference title, starting a winning streak of its own after snapping Grove City 27-year reign last season. Waynesburg defeated Grove City by 32 points this season, with senior captain Angie Marchetti finishing in first in the meet. Junior Teghan Simonton and senior Elinore Loch also finished in the top seven overall in the meet, while a slew of other Waynesburg runners were named second-team all-conference or honorable mention all-conference for the PAC.

Hardie and the coaching staff still have their eyes set on accomplishing more than PAC championships, and the current senior class is the one that helped instill that belief into the program over the past couple years.

“This was the first year where this team finally realized they were a player in the region,” said Hardie. “The talent up front is going to be really hard to replace, we lose a runner that’s been really close to Nationals, one that’s been to Nationals and then probably one of the most consistent runner’s we’ve ever had on this team, in Angie, Julie and Elinore, respectively.”

However, the big thing about this graduating class was what they were able to do both on and off the course.

“It was a game changing group that not only changed the talent, but the leadership of the team,” said Hardie. “So I definitely fear that going into next year we could have a little regression in terms of the leadership of the team, because it needs to continue in that direction. When you lose a core group, like there’s 10 seniors in that whole class, we have to continue to work on accountability and leadership in the future.”

In looking back at the season, Marchetti sees the team as still in a promising situation, thanks to the coaching staff and key returners.

“With this program and the girls that we have and with the experience they have, they’re in good hands and going to do really well,” said Hardie. “They have a lot of potential. I know that Hardie does really well at recruiting, and they have a lot of potential moving forward.”

The atmosphere has changed on the team in the past year, as the program transitions from capturing conference titles to aspiring towards qualifying for nationals.

“The confidence we had and the excitement we had was so contagious that each practice going in we knew what we could do,” said Marchetti. “But in general, from top to bottom, we relied on everyone to do their part and you can’t be a full team if everyone isn’t working hard, but everyone was.”

Simonton, a key returner next season who has the chance to win the PAC individual title for the Yellow Jackets, also saw the blend of optimism and work ethic throughout the entire team.

“It was disappointing that we didn’t make it to nationals like we really wanted to,” said Simonton. “I think this has been the first year ever that everybody on the team was actually working towards this goal. Everyone on the team was invested, everyone on the team believed we had a shot.”

While the team will have months off until it begins training once again for the 2018 season, Hardie can already identify a few goals for next season.

“I know this team will want to repeat as conference champions, that’s an early number one goal,” said Hardie. “And we always try to be a top ten regional team, and I think we have the talent to be back in top ten.”