2024 NCAA NORTH REGIONAL RECAP

25:23.2 Vincent Kaluza (42nd place)
25:46.5 Aiden Chalmers (58th)
25:46.5 Cole Stencel (59th)
26:12.6 Nick St. Peter (78th)
26:18.8 Eamon Cavanaugh (81st)
26:21.2 Jacob Malecha (85th)
26:47.8 Joseph Gathje (100th)

Team Place: 11th of 31 teams

Well the North Region once again displayed it’s strength. The NCAA ended up selecting the top six men’s teams from our region for the National meet — the most of any of the ten DIII regions. Those six teams ending up placing 1st, 4th, 8th, 16th, 19th and 28th at Nationals and our Region also had the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th place individuals at Nationals as well.

Our #2 man all year, senior Eamon Cavanaugh (25:28 at Eau Claire earlier this season), came down with a little sickness leading up to the region meet which may explain him ending up as our 5th man on race day. Otherwise, Tim and I were in agreement that this was our best race of the year as a team. The course was actually fairly soft and muddy, and there was a strong 20mph wind with 30mph gusts on race day. Our guys moved up well throughout the race, and I’d say the highlight was another big race by Aiden Chalmers to run 25:46 and finish as our #2 on the day before he heads off to Spain next semester to study abroad. Aiden got better and better each race this fall.

Sophomore Vincent Kaluza ended up missing qualifying for the national meet as an individual by just 13 seconds. Going into the race we knew Vincent definitely had a chance, but also knew it would be tough in this region. St. Scholastica senior Calvin Boone, who is a returning XC All-American from last year, ended up getting the 7th and final individual qualifying spot in 25:09. When a returning All-American barely gets in, you can’t be too disappointed by just missing it yourself.

All this is simply to say that the competition regionally and nationally is tougher than ever, and we are up for the challenge. I think we have a lot of positive momentum and took several steps forward as a program this fall. While we feel good about our racing this year and how our guys ran on the day at the conference and region meets, we feel even better about how we trained this summer/fall. And we aren’t content with 11th place as a team in the region either. After a couple weeks of downtime our guys are back at it and preparing for a great track season this spring.

A lot to look forward to for Vincent and our entire team, too. We will graduate just one from our top seven, senior Joe Gathje, as senior Eamon Cavanaugh has decided to come back for a 5th year next fall to use the eligibility he has from missing his 2023 season due to injury. If anyone has an NIL deal ready to go for Eamon, let us know… I’m kidding of course (kind of). Nevertheless, having our entire top six from this fall back next year has us very excited.

Seniors Eamon Cavanaugh & Joe Gathje taking it all in after their last* cross country race for SJU
*Not Eamon’s last cross country race for SJU, although he didn’t know that when this photo was taken as he did not decide to come back next year until a couple weeks later

I’ll be honest, I got a little emotional seeing this picture of seniors Joe & Eamon from after the region meet. First off, we have a great senior class this year. Holy cow have we been lucky to have Joe, Eamon and the other seniors not in this picture with us for four years. As always, it will be sad to see them go. But, even more than that, this picture brought me back to my last races for SJU and how special it is to line up and lay it all out there with your best friends and training partners week after week. Absolutely the best times of my life, and I’m glad to see our current guys cherishing and enjoying these moments as they live them.

ST. MICHAEL’S GAMES UPDATE

Aside from the banquet, which we just had this past Sunday, we completed just one other St. Michael’s Games event since my last update to you. I will include a recap of that event, the Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament, below and leave the banquet recap for my next blog post.

ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS SINGLE ELIMINATION TOURNAMENT

After it’s introduction to the St. Michael’s Games a few years ago, this event has quickly become one of the team’s favorites. Personally, I love the events that all of the guys really want to win, but they really don’t much control over whether they actually do win or not. You have to have a lot of luck on your side to win five straight Rock, Paper, Scissors games in a row.

With 31 guys on our team this fall, somebody had to get a first round bye. We thought it was most fair to give our defending champion, sophomore Cole Stencel, that benefit. After getting a pass through round one, Cole won his round two matchup against Eamon Cavanaugh with ease. However, in his next matchup, senior Nate Courchane came away victorious to prevent Cole from advancing to the final four. We would have a new Rock, Paper, Scissors Champion this year.

Nate himself would end up advancing to the Championship match against sophomore Lars Molenkamp (who is from just outside of Amsterdam in the Netherlands). I’ll let you watch the video of the Championship Match below to find out who wins.