Johnnie Cross Country Blog

Cross country season will be here before we know it. The guys are getting after it now in summer training, and with five of our top seven from last year coming back plus 15:10 5000m man Eamon Cavanaugh, who missed most of cross country last year with a stress fracture, we are looking forward to a great fall. Last year’s graduating seniors will be hard to replace, but I am excited to get into the season and wanted to reach out to you with some upcoming dates to add to your calendar. There may even be some bonus highlight pictures from last year’s cross country banquet at the end of this post since I never posted those last year. Hope to see you on September 6th and on October 5th, and I will be in touch in a week or two with another blog post that will likely contain an apparel order form if you are interested in purchasing any SJU cross country apparel. Hope you’re having a great summer!

 -Maxwell

Thank you to those of you who made it out to our NCAA North Region meet in Colfax, Wis. last week! The course was in great shape, and a little sleet during the race never hurt anybody. Overall, I think it was our best race of the season as a team. Obviously it is hard to go seven for seven, but I’d say that five or six of our guys had their best races of the season, with freshmen Cole Stencel having an off-day with a side cramp around 3k in. As a team, we ran better than at conference two weeks ago. Obviously missing two guys from our top five, Carter Grove and Eamon Cavanaugh, hurts as well. There is no doubt that Division III is better than ever, and we’d like to think our region is the toughest, or close to the toughest, region in the country. Here is how we finished:

Well, shoot. I definitely meant to do more of these blog posts this fall. Turns out the to-do list gets pretty long in the thick of cross country season. Maybe I should be delegating more work to our volunteer assistant coach? Nevertheless, all of the sudden it is almost the middle of November! Our top seven will toe the starting line tomorrow at Noon for the NCAA North Region Championships at Whitetail Golf Course in Colfax, Wisconsin, hosted by UW Eau Claire. Before going any further, an overdue thank you is in store to all of you for the support during our Go Johnnies Challenge earlier this season. It may sound cliché, but we literally could not do what we do without your support each year, and I am very thankful to have such a generous alumni group behind us. In an effort to keep this blog post a manageable length, I plan to put out another post early next week with a Regionals race recap, as well as some highlights from our trip earlier this season to the Division III Pre-National meet in Pennsylvania and some more info on an exciting new addition to our facilities – a LightSpeed Lift anti-gravity / body support treadmill system to aid us in injury prevention and rehabilitation. Both of those things wouldn’t have been possible for us without your support each year in the Go Johnnies Challenge!

2023 Division III Pre-Nationals Meet in Newville, Pennsylvania

Left to right: Aiden Chalmers, Cole Stencel, Nick St. Peter, Max McCoy, Joe Gathje, Lloyd Young, Tommy Allen, Eamon Cavanaugh, Vincent Kaluza, Dylan Bartness

Anyways, it has been an eventful fall full of ups and downs, just like any other season. We placed 4th two weeks ago at the MIAC Championships without two returners from last year’s top five due to injuries – 8:59 steeplechaser Carter Grove (Osakis) and 15:11 5,000m man Eamon Cavanaugh (Oak Park-River Forest, Ill.). While it goes without saying that Carter and Eamon were missed and we’re looking forward to seeing them back in action during the track season, our guys rose to the occasion and executed a great race. It’s been especially exciting to see our freshmen trio of Vincent Kaluza (Rocori), Cole Stencel (Maple River) and Max McCoy (Mt. Michael, Neb.) get better and better with each race this fall. Senior Lloyd Young earned his third consecutive All-MIAC honor, and all but 9 of our guys recorded career personal bests on a Carleton course that is not particularly easy, with three more recording season bests and all but two running faster than they did on this same course at Carleton’s Running of the Cows meet earlier this season.

Our seven competitors for the Region meet tomorrow are as follows:
Tommy Allen – Senior, St. Paul Academy
Aiden Chalmers – Sophomore, Minnetonka
Vincent Kaluza – Freshman, Rocori
Max McCoy – Freshman, Mount Michael Benedictine (Neb.)
Nick St. Peter – Sophomore, Maple Grove
Cole Stencel – Freshman, Maple River
Lloyd Young – Senior, Bloomington Kennedy

Dylan Bartness (Junior, Robbinsdale Armstrong), Jacob Malecha (Sophomore, New Prague) and Ethan Leonard (Junior, Chaska) will also be serving as our three alternates after coming across the line as the first three SJU finishers at last week’s Fall Finale on campus. The Region meet is the meet we’ve had our eye on all year, and we still feel as though our best team race is yet to come.

I don’t believe there is a live stream of the race, but you can follow the live splits of the race via Wayzata Results here: https://results.wayzatatiming.com/meets/28768

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. The women’s race is just after ours at 1:00PM, with CSB’s team looking very strong and last year’s NCAA cross country runner-up and CSB senior Fiona Smith looking to defend her two consecutive North Region titles from 2021 and 2022. For anyone planning to come watch in person, I look forward to seeing you there! Come say Hello after the race.

More, including a St. Michael’s Games update, to come next week. Because I know that is the real reason everyone reads this blog!

• Maxwell & Tim

SAINT MICHAEL’S GAME UPDATE

The first two weeks of the season have been warm and busy, but that hasn’t prevented us from kicking off the 2023 St. Michael’s Games with two new events: a watermelon eating contest and a canoe relay race to the chapel and back on Lake Sag. This year’s roster was split into five St. Michael’s Games teams of seven guys each – three from each team were delegated as “eaters” and participated in the watermelon eating contest, and the other four were designated as their team’s paddlers for the canoe relay.

The watermelon eating contest proved to be a slam dunk event for some teams, and a real challenge for others. Each team drew a number out of a hat to determine which of the five watermelons they got as well as which of the five knife options from my wife and I’s house they got to use. Team Coffey Beans, with their three eaters of Joe Coffey (Kimberly, WI), Vincent Kaluza (Rocori) and Aidan Thomas (Totino-Grace) ran away with the inaugural title, finishing their watermelon in a blistering time of 5 minutes and 27 seconds. The Flying Clutchmen – Mason Allen (Park) Aaron Freier (Red Wing) and Lars Molenkamp (Almere, Netherlands) – were not far behind in 2nd with a time of 6:01. Then it got ugly. The 3rd and 4th place teams scratched and clawed, or should I say chewed, their way to finishing times of 11:58 and 16:14, with our 5th place team of Dylan Bartness (Robbinsdale Armstrong.), Danny Kloeppner (Champlin Park) and Peyton Martinek (Coon Rapids) registering as a DNF as they were unable to finish their watermelon. Tim and I applauded their effort but were disappointed in their result after so much smack talk.

The canoe relay took place this past Saturday at Lake Sag, with freshmen Peyton Martinek, fresh off his team’s DNF in the watermelon eating contest, serving as our official lifeguard for the competition to boost his student employment hours as a beach and pool lifeguard. Utilizing the campus’ free canoe rental system at Lake Sag, the four members of each St. Michael’s Game team who did not participate in the watermelon eating contest served as their team’s paddlers, with a few exceptions due to sickness. Each team’s first two paddlers started at the beach at Lake Sag and paddled out to the chapel where their other two teammates were waiting to switch places with them before paddling back to the beach. The race started off in pure disaster, as all five teams collided together while trying to get in and launch their canoes, sending several teams into a panic. Los Comodores’ first two paddlers in particular – Nate Courchane (Park) and Max McCoy (Mount Michael, NE) – had a very tough time as they instantly flipped their canoe, causing a large amount of water to get inside. After attempting to bail the water out by hand and flipping the canoe a second time, they decided to swim their canoe over to the floating raft in the lake and try to pull their canoe up before pouring all the water out… needless to say, Nate and Max got off to a poor start and really hampered their teams chances, leaving their relay teammates Eamon Cavanaugh (Oak Park-River Forest, IL) and Lloyd Young (Bloomington Kennedy), who were out at the chapel waiting for their time to shine, wondering what was going on. Meanwhile, Tommy Allen (St. Paul Academy) and James Leon (Bishop Amat, CA) of Team James Leon – Tim and I questioned this team name choice – were the first ones to reach the chapel and quickly swapped places with their teammates Joe Gathje (Bloomington Jefferson) and Gavin Swift (Bishop Garrigan, IA). Vincent Kaluza and Jacob Malecha (New Prague) came into the relay exchange at the chapel in 2nd place and passed off their canoe to AJ Karn (Wayzata) and Joe Coffey. Karn and Coffey had Joe Gathje and Swift in their sights the whole way back to the beach, eventually passing them to take over 1st place and establish our course record with a finishing time of 13:10.22. Highlights, including a video of the start line chaos:  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gv09DQtJSMs2nMSkmENYcy0MuUDZN93S/view?usp=sharing

ALUMNI MEET – TONI ST. PIERRE INVITATIONAL THIS FRIDAY

Another reminder that our Toni St. Pierre Alumni Invitational is this Friday at Boulder Ridge Golf Course in St. Cloud. Race week is here, and the guys are excited to see where they are at after a long summer of training. The women race at 6:00pm and men at 6:45pm. Alumni are welcome to race or spectate, and we are planning for a post-race gathering in the Boulder Ridge Golf Course clubhouse/restaurant with pizza, drinks, etc. Thanks to those of you who have already reached out about racing! Here is the link to register for the race for anyone else interested in running: https://www.directathletics.com/meets/xc/22411.html.

GO JOHNNIES CHALLENGE – THIS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH

Lastly, the Go Johnnies Challenge is this Thursday, September 7th as well. This is the Saint John’s athletic department’s annual fundraiser where every dollar you give and designate for cross country/track & field goes directly to us. This event is extremely important for our program, and in the past it has allowed us to provide opportunities and experiences that otherwise would not be possible. Examples include our 2021 trip to Oregon, our upcoming trip this season to race at the Pre-National meet in Pennsylvania, as well as the trip the track & field team takes to California almost every year. These trips, in cross country at least, put us in a better position to qualify for the national meet as a team by racing against teams from other regions, and they are also great team bonding trips for the guys that give them a chance to race against some higher competition. As Jeremy mentioned last week, your support also allows us to carry a larger roster and make sure everyone is provided with the same experience while on our team. Recently we have also purchased a Lightspeed Lift treadmill system, which is an anti-gravity training system that will aid in injury rehabilitation and prevention. It will help our guys get back to running quicker when coming back from an injury, and also serve the team in a preventative fashion for guys who have proven to be more injury prone in the past by allowing them to run with only about 60% of their body weight while on the treadmill – putting less impact and stress on their legs while running. Anyways, this is another great addition to our program that would likely not be possible without your support.

How to help:

1. Support the Cross Country/Track & Field Teams through a simple donation. Make sure to set Cross Country/Track & Field as the designation. 

1. Go Johnnies Challenge: Cross Country/Track & Field

2. Become an advocate and encourage and promote the event on any social media outlets. We can use all the social media help we can get!

3. If so inclined, set up a matching gift that will encourage others to donate. Make sure to set Cross Country/Track & Field as the matching designation. 

1. 2023 Go Johnnies Matching Gift

2. Enter dollar amount and decide if you will make the full gift regardless If the match is not complete met (check box)

3. Select “Other” and enter a dollar amount to give and check the “Per donor” box

4. Select the Match a designation box and select the designation you want to match

5. Fill out the rest of the form

Thank you so much for your support in years past, and Tim and I hope to see you on Friday in St. Cloud!

- Maxwell & Tim

Maxwell here -- It’s been a whirlwind last few weeks for obvious reasons, but a great first two weeks of practice. The guys are excited to be back on campus, and have had a great summer of training. Before going too much further, I just want to address the elephant in the room and say how excited and thankful I am to be in this position. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the tradition and history of this program, and am sincerely honored to be able to work towards it’s continued success. I said this in my quote in the original press release too, but I mean it... In my eyes, and I know in all of yours, there could not be a bigger act to follow. Luckily for me and the current team members, Tim will be sticking around to continue to provide his wisdom (and humor) to the team on a daily basis – all while being able to enjoy his morning at Subway in peace without being rushed to campus for any department staff meetings! In all seriousness, as you all know, Saint John’s has been beyond lucky to have Tim all these years, and we are still considering ourselves the “luckiest of the lucky” that he will continue to be involved with the team. Quite the volunteer assistant coach.

Tim talks about this more in his statement below, but we have our first meet next Friday in St. Cloud, the CSB+SJU Toni St. Pierre Invitational 5k at Boulder Ridge Golf Course, and would love to see as many alumni there as possible. A bit of a late notice, we know, but we are hoping to have a great team of alumni, of all ages, run in the race with our current team. Spectating alumni are more than welcome as well. TBA on some sort of alumni gathering after the races — either at the golf course’s restaurant or maybe somewhere in St. Joe. More info on that soon.

Here is our 2023 racing schedule, for those who are curious: 

• September 8th - Toni St. Pierre Invitational 5k (St. Cloud, Minn.)

• September 16th - Running of the Cows 8k (Northfield, Minn.)

• September 29th - UW Eau Claire Blugold Invite (Colfax, Wis.)

• October 7th - Pre-National Meet (Carlisle, Penn.)

• October 14th - UW La Crosse Jim Drews Invite (West Salem, Wis.)

• October 28th - MIAC Championships (Northfield, Minn.)

• November 3rd - Fall Finale (Collegeville, Minn.)

• November 11th - NCAA North Regional (Colfax, Wis.)

• November 18th - NCAA DIII Championships (Carlisle, Penn.)

  Watch your inbox next week for a St. Michael’s Games competition update as well as more info about the upcoming season. With four of our top five from last year’s regional team returning this year and a great group of young up-and-comers, as well as a good-sized freshmen class, we are really looking forward to October and November.

   

  And now for Tim’s portion of the message:

At age 69, I don’t think I need to explain my retirement.  I am enjoying my free time while still getting to be a volunteer assistant coach.  But with Maxwell eminently ready to go, this was absolutely the right time.  

Maxwell has already breathed new life into our Saint Michael’s Games (intrasquad competition) with two new events: the watermelon eating contest and the canoe race.  And our first race will be new, too, with the CSB/SJU Toni St. Pierre 5K Invitational at Boulder Ridge Golf Course on Friday, September 8th in the evening.  6 PM for the women, 6:45 PM for the men.  This will be a joint Alumnae/Alumni Meet, and if ever there was a person and runner who could be celebrated by both teams, it would be Toni.

Toni attended Hopkins Eisenhower High School where she ran 2:18 and 5:02 before graduating in 1973.  She was also an exceptional Nordic skier.  Eisenhower had no girls teams at that time.  The boys coach, Pat Lanin, told her she could run with the boys team, but the Minnesota State High School League said she could not.  In a landmark case, Toni successfully sued the High School League for the right to do so.  

When Toni enrolled at Saint Ben’s in 1973, there was not yet a cross country or track and field team, so she trained and, on at least one occasion, raced with the Saint John’s team.  She was our teammate and, in every way, she was wonderful.  Toni was competing at a very high level in triathlons well into her 50s before we lost her to cancer in 2013.

Let this first Toni St. Pierre Invitational be a celebration of Toni, and let it be a celebration of all the friendships we made during our college cross country years.

We hope to see you next Friday at the Toni St. Pierre Invitational and alumni meet, and hope you all had a great summer!

- Maxwell & Tim

Hello everyone,

Thanks to those of you who came out to watch our MIAC and North Regional races! It was great to see so many familiar faces.

MIAC Championships

The MIAC meet was held back in St. Paul, at a neutral site, for the first time since 2016 – and it was great. The course was wonderful, we had more fans and alumni come out to spectate than in recent years when the meet was not in the Twin Cities, and our guys ran great too. We finished 2nd, our highest finish since also placing 2nd in 2016, and had four All-MIAC performers, which was the most since 2007.

NCAA North Regional

We came into the regional meet hoping to take another step forward from our MIAC performance, and ended up finishing 7th in what we think is the toughest region in the country. Our guys again ran well and, other than some small adjustments for the future, we thought each guy ran about as good of a race as they could’ve. At the end of the day we wanted better than 7th, but that’s what keeps the fire lit for the future. Junior Lloyd Young qualified for the NCAA Championships individually for the second year in a row with his 10th place finish.

NCAA Division III Championships – Tomorrow!

Lloyd, as well as CSB’s top runner Fiona Smith, are both racing this weekend at the NCAA Championships in Lansing, Michigan with the women racing first at 11 a.m. Eastern Time and the men following at 12 p.m. Noon Eastern Time. Lloyd and Fiona finished 52nd and 5th last year, respectively, and both will be looking to improve on those performances come race day. Here is the link to the live stream to watch the races: https://www.ncaa.com/event/4230

DIII Men's Cross Country Championship - NCAA.com

DIII Men's Cross Country Championship on

www.ncaa.com

Tune in!

Until next time,

Tim & Maxwell

The MIAC Championship Cross Country Championship will return to St. Paul this Saturday, October 29 at the Highland 9 Hole Golf Course. The race begins on Edgecumbe Avenue about 100 meters south of Montreal. The finish line will be on along Montreal Avenue about 100 meters west of Edgecumbe. The women’s 6K race will start at 11:00 AM and the men’s 8K race will start at noon.

St. Olaf, Saint John’s, and Carleton are ranked 3rd, 7th, and 8th in the North Region. On the women’s side, St. Olaf, Carleton, Saint Ben’s, and Bethel are ranked 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 8th.

Junior Lloyd Young (3rd at the MIAC Championship and 52nd at the NCAA Championship a year ago) will lead the Saint John’s effort. He has a strong supporting cast including seniors Dillon Diekmann, Mitchell Grand, Alexei Hensel and Tom Nemanich; juniors Carter Grove and Tommy Allen; and sophomore Eamon Cavanaugh. As ever, everybody on every team will compete in the varsity race.

It will be a great event on a wonderful spectator course. We hope to see you there.

PS: No dogs on the course!

Thank you to all for your generosity on our September 2 Go Johnnies fundraiser and of course at other times throughout the year. It is clear you know how much this enhances what we are able to do both fall and spring.

If you would like to purchase quality Saint John’s Cross Country t-shirts and sweatshirts and hats and such, you can do so by going to the link immediately below. Note that the ordering deadline is this Saturday, September 25 at midnightSeptember. You can have your item(s) delivered to your home address. This is not a Saint John’s fundraiser.

• Bigteamstore.com

• Passcode SJUCC21

• Oredr items

• Deadline 12:01 AM Sunday, September 26

After all the busy work of getting the school year and the season started, we are now (finally) much more about cross country than administration. No more forms to fill out! Coaches and especially athletes rejoice.

Our September 4 opener with Trinity College (North Dakota) at St. Cloud’s Boulder Ridge Golf Course satisfied the NCAA requirement that we race within two weeks of the start of practice. It also allowed us to knock some of the rust off and give us a fuzzy notion of where we were. Sophomore Lloyd Young led the way in 20:49 over the 6400 meter course. A very nice day in what has been a beautiful September in total.

We enjoyed a much bigger field and excellent competition at St. Olaf on Saturday, including five of the top nine ranked teams in our new North Region (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Finlandia of Michigan). We came fifth as a team with senior Andy Goldsmith leading the way in 11th place at 25:57. Andy and most all his teammates took a big step forward. Lloyd Young was fulfilling National Guard responsibilities but will be with us when we compete at the Hamline Invitational on Friday, October 1. That race will be a 4:30 PM start at the Highland Park 9 hole golf course in St. Paul. Come watch us if you are able.

Results for all our races can be found at gojohnnies.com

Tim

So much of what we do is made possible by the generosity of our alumni and friends. Tomorrow is the Go Johnnie Challenge. If you able to support the team again or for the first time, you can do so by going to this website.

2021 Go Johnnies Challenge · GiveCampus

Thanks for your financial support and for all the support which does not have a dollar figure on it. Our alumni are the best, as you all know.

2021 SAINT JOHN’S CROSS COUNTRY

This fall’s team numbers thirty-two. We were back on campus on August 23, one week before school begins. Because NCAA rules require that we race within two weeks of the start of practice, we will be host to a very small intercollegiate meet this Saturday, September 4 at Boulder Ridge Golf Course in St. Cloud. Saint Ben’s will compete at 9:30, and we will follow at 10:00 over 6400 meters.

A number of our guys took a big step forward last spring on the track. The following placed at 800 meters on up, and all return this fall. The year in school was their academic standing last spring.

Alexei Hensel So 800 M, 6th PR 1:54.82

Nate Clausing So 800 M, 7th PR 1:55.03

Mitchell Grand So 1500 M, 7th PR 3:55.90

Tommy Allen Fr 1500 M, 6th PR 3:58.80

Tom Nemanich So Steeplechase, 4th PR 9:43.02

Lloyd Young So 5000 M, 5th PR 14:49.63

10000 M, 6th PR 31:29.05

Andy Goldsmith Jr 10000 M, 7th PR 31:43.08

Steeplechasers Nate Meyer (now a senior) and Carter Grove (a sophomore) had good summers and are among others who will vie for a top seven spot in November.

A big change in Division III cross country is regional realignment. There are now ten regions. Minnesota and Wisconsin schools (and Finlandia College of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula) make up the North Region. There are still 32 teams advancing to the national meet, but only the winning team at each of the ten region meets will be an automatic qualifier. The remaining 22 will be decided by committee. There is no cap to the number of teams that may advance from any one region. The North Region Championship this fall will be at Whitetail Golf Course in Colfax, Wisconsin. This is Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s inviational course, which is about as good as it gets.

Other news: Maxwell Kuzara, SJU 2017, is our cross country assistant coach. Maxwell brings a experience, wisdom, and passion. Maxwell was with us last spring, and the team is happy to see him return.

Our 5K intra squad at Boulder Ridge Golf Course in St. Cloud (also a virtual dual with Concordia-Moorhead) went very well. Weather was as predicted less the precipitation, and the course, although a little soft in stretches, was in good shape and ran pretty fast. We still had nine on the sidelines, but we are getting there. Concordia’s times from their own 5K run in Moorhead beat us by a 28-29 margin. They finished 1-2-4, but we did have eight runners in front of their fifth man.

Kudos to our first finisher, junior Andy Goldsmith from Cascia Hall in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by way of La Crosse Aquinas. Andy began emerging last November when he was suddenly running in our top five with times in the mid 26’s. I told him he reminds me of another great runner from Aquinas who, like him, was always the first to arrive at practice. I cannot remember that fellow’s name, but his initials are Charlie Mahler.

Next up are time trials on the track on Saturday, October 17. While we had fancied our distance runners getting after a 5K, I would not be surprised if they opt to take a crack at the mile. They have added a gear or two over the past several weeks and I believe they would be confident in running it aggressively. And it would set them up for the 8K races to follow. We shall see.