By The Men’s Cross Country team finished their season with their spikes flying as they won their fourth consecutive Frontier Conference championship, and followed that with a 12th place finish at nationals in Missouri.
On November 22 the Fighting Saints cross country team traveled to Columbia, Missouri, for the NAIA Cross Country Championship.
The Saints continued their streak after success at the Frontier Conference Championship on Nov. 6, in Billings, Montana.
The men’s cross country team won their fourth consecutive Frontier Conference cross country championship, icing out 25th ranked Rocky Mountain College by a score of 32 to 33 in a thrilling race.
Junior Zack Gacnik, from Conifer, Colorado, took the championship title. Oliver Morris, a sophomore teammate from Kirkland, Washington, majoring in Psychology, followed in second place.
“Winning conference was one of our goals all season long. It’s something we wrote down on paper at team camp before the start of the fall semester,” said Gacnik, who is majoring in Computer Science. “Given the circumstances that arose throughout the season, the only way to keep our national championship meet hopes alive was to win the meet outright. It was a do-or-die situation for us. We all felt the sense of urgency leading up to it.
It in the end, we had some younger guys really step up and pull through for us. We snuck away with a one-point victory over Rocky. I felt that it was a perfect culmination of our team and what we can do when we run for each other.”
Gacnik’s title win also earned All-Conference and Runner of the Year. Another honorable mention goes to senior Connor O’Hara who placed 5th in his final Frontier Championship. O’Hara is from Ulm, Montana, receiving a degree in business management and marketing.
The National Team Competitors
The men earned an automatic bid to the NAIA Championships with their win.
The men’s team had the highest finish since 2015, placing 12th at the NAIA National Cross Country Championship.
The Saints ran their fastest total team time ever over 8K. They beat Lewis-Clark State by 9 points to earn the 12th position in the race.
This race was paced by Gacnik who placed 18th overall. He earned Carroll’s first cross country All-American status since Reghan Worley in 2021. The other Saints that helped carve the path to this success were Oliver Morris, Connor O’Hara, junior Brycen Gardner from Spokane, Washington, majoring in Civil Engineering, senior Daniel Koralewski from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, majoring in Civil Engineering, senior Zach Rector from Portland, Oregon, majoring in Health Sciences, and junior Peter Rehberger from Bozeman, majoring in Political Science.
“We’re really proud of both the men’s and women’s teams for the sacrifice, effort, and growth they put into this season,” said Head Coach Shannon Flynn. “On the men’s side, it was such a great story! Winning by only 1 point at conference to make it to Nationals then placing 12th there. It is a testament to continuing to believe and counting on actions adding up to the outcomes we want.”
Coach Flynn became the Carroll College Fighting Saints Cross Country and Track and Field Distance Coach in the summer of 2019 and the 2024-2025 season will mark her sixth season at Carroll.
Cross Country runners will be competing in the first indoor meet of the season coming up on Dec. 5 in Bozeman.
Hannah Sempf (Photo by Taylor Decker/University of Montana)
Saints women sent runners to nationals
The Fighting Saints Women’s Cross Country team fell just short in their bid to repeat as conference champions, but still sent two girls to nationals in Missouri.
On Nov. 6, in Billings, the Women’s team scored 47 points coming second to a strong Montana Tech team who scored 26 points for the win. Sophomore Isabelle Ruff was the top placer for the Saints in sixth. Ruff is from Concord, California, and is majoring in Nursing.
Rounding out the All-Conference selections for the women was Junior Hannah Sempf (8th) from Columbia Falls, Montana, who is majoring in Elementary Education, and Sophomore Anna Terry (9th) from Chinook, Montana, who is majoring in Business.
The Saints second place did not earn them an automatic bid to nationals, however, the women had two athletes, Ruff and Sempf, compete in Columbia, Missouri, for the NAIA Cross Country Championship on Nov. 22.
Ruff and Sempf competed in the women’s 6K race, placing 175th and 210th out of 326 runners. The women didn’t set personal records in this particular race, but they executed their race plan well of running together for a good portion of the competition, and not having a pack to run in.
Head Coach Shannon Flynn expressed how proud she was for the sacrifice, effort and growth that was put into the season by both the men’s and women’s team.
“Even though the outcome was not exactly what we wanted on the women’s side with missing nationals by two spots, we know we succeeded in many ways and will take the things we learned forward for the future,” Flynn said.
The Saints will be taking the growth from this season and using it in the Track and Field season when some of these athletes will compete in the first meet on Dec. 5 in Bozeman
