The men’s cross country team improved on last season, finishing seventh at the conference meet. The Gusties’ next race will be the NCAA Central Region Championships at St. Olaf on Saturday, Nov. 16.
Although the men did not meet their goal of taking sixth place, they see the conference meet as a success because of their overall improvement. Last year, the men tied for last at the conference meet. First-Year Evan Jones said that Coaches Dale Bahr and Brenden Huber are proud of the team’s accomplishment.
Jones said the Gusties had the potential to place fifth overall, scoring very closely to Hamline and Macalester.
“Between Macalester, Hamline, and us, it was so close that the coaches are happy that we performed better than we have in the last four or five years. I think if you look over the whole season, you can see that we’re probably the better team of the three, but just on that day they were a little better,” Jones said.
First-Year Thomas Knobbe said that the close finish at Conference has added extra motivation to perform better than Hamline and Macalester at Regions.
Senior Sam Fransen said that while the close finish was disappointing, the team did their best.
“One thing Dale has taught us is that we can only control how we do in a race—we can’t control how everyone else does. We went out there [at Conference] and did our best so I feel good about that,” Fransen said.
The team goal for Regions is to place fifth for the MIAC. Jones and Knobbe plan to help the team reach their goal by posting their personal record times at St. Olaf. Having run at St. Olaf earlier in the season, Knobbe believes he is in a good position to run his best time.
“This will be the second time we’ve run at a course, so it’s almost like it’s our second year and we’re going to know how to strategically run the course, which should make it a little easier. I want to PR, because I think that’s possible. I feel like with the competition aspect I can definitely do it, I just need to bring my ‘A’ game,” Knobbe said.
Knobbe, Fransen, and Jones have consistently finished in the top five for Gustavus all season. As point scorers, their performances have impacted how the team does overall. Despite being new to college athletics, Jones and Knobbe have established themselves as two breakout first-years for the Gusties. As the season has progressed, these young runners have felt an increase in pressure to perform well.
“The beginning of the year was easier because we just came in thinking, ‘I’m on this team and I’m a first-year, so I’m just going to run. It doesn’t really matter because I’m probably not going to be up there at all. But then, as we started running races and the results came in and I was two or three consistently, I realized that I was basically a pivotal part of the team and how we would do team-wise with scoring, so the pressure has increased,” Knobbe said.
Despite the building pressure, Jones said that the coaches have taught them to let go of their bad races and to not let a bad week affect future performance. Although he did not run as well as he would have liked at Conference, that has not altered Jones’ outlook on Regions. Instead, he uses it as motivation.
“There’s a lot of factors that go into how well you’re going to run a race. I felt bad that I performed worse than I wanted to, but all in all, I don’t think there was any pressure based on my past performance. The coaches really stress forgetting your bad days. So I think our team does that pretty well. Looking into Regions, we shouldn’t forget Conference but we should definitely use it as motivation to do even better,” Jones said.
The men say their love of cross country stems from the family they’ve built within the team. They are each other’s support system and push each other to do well. Spending time together outside of meets and practice has turned the Gustie runners into a tightknit family.
“The team environment is so huge, I think that’s the biggest part of cross country. And honestly it’s just fun to have a sort of family environment to go to and hang out with. I think the family environment is the biggest thing for me and why I run,” Jones said.
Based on the team’s performance leading up to Regions, the underclassmen have high expectations for the upcoming year. The men said the team will only get better as their cross country careers progress. Knobbe says the biggest challenge the team will face is replacing Senior Joe Renier, who consistently placed first among the Gusties.
Knobbe and Jones both intend to train hard in the off season so they can come back next year and post times under 26 minutes to help lead the team after the loss of Renier. Despite losing their top runner, the men are confident they will be a strong team next season.
“Dale is really happy with the direction the team is moving as more of a team sport rather than an individual sport. Dale is excited about how everyone from the upperclassmen to the freshmen are looking, and that’s good for the future of the program. The team is moving in a positive direction as far as attitude goes and the quality of training, so it’ll be exciting to see what they can do next year,” Fransen said.