Northfield, MN. - The Saints Women's cross country runners entered the program's fourth Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletics Championships off a program-best 4th in 2023, which was three places higher than the previous two efforts. 
They left the 2024 MIAC championships on the team podium, in third place, behind nationally-ranked St. Olaf and Carleton, off of a slew of personal-best performances on the St. Olaf 6km course.
Carleton's Hannah Preisser ran away from the field to win in 21:18.90 and earn the 2024 MIAC individual title.  St. Olaf's Alison Bode (22:04.40) and Lauren Walda (22:08.30) rounded out the individual podium spots and led the Ole's to a small upset over the higher-ranked, defending NCAA DIII Champion Knights.
Regan Dewitt set a 6km personal best time of 22:52.70, leading the Saints into the finish line in 8th, while Grace McCormick (Duluth, Minn./Denfeld HS) finished 12^th in a PB time of 23:17.90.  DeWitt improved from a 23rd-place finish in 2023, which landed her MIAC Freshman of the Year last season.  Both runners earned All-Conference honors with their performances inside the top 15.  But the personal bests and accolades just kept coming as Greta Leitheiser (Bend, Ore./Sun Valley Community School) crossed the line in 16^th in 23:17.90, and Kelsey Johannes (Anchorage, Alaska/West Anchorage HS) finished 23^rd in 23:34.20—both picking up All-Conference Honorable Mention awards with their fastest-ever 6k races.  Abby Wood (Circle Pines, MN/Centennial HS) rounded out the Saints scoring in 51^st, in a time of 24:54.10, missing her own PB by just ten seconds. 

How It Happened
The Saints ran a smartly-paced race that paid off with a historic end.
They sat in fifth place at the first mile, trailing the Ole's and Knights, as well as Gustavus Adolphus in third, and a hard-charging St. Benedict in fourth; but only eight points separated Gustavus in third, St. Benedict in fourth, and the Saints in fifth.
Then, the Saints came alive.  By the halfway mark, they'd taken over third position and flipped the 8-point deficit to Gustavus at the mile, to a 16-point advantage on the Gusties to move into podium position by the 3km mark, then grow that lead to 19 points with a kilometer remaining in the race.  
But it wasn't over.  Gustavus would rally to take back ten of the 19 points by the finish line, but the Saints had moved their first four scorers all inside the top 25 by the finish.  The gap created by that performance was enough for Wood to bring home the Saints for third, and simply too much for the Gusties to bite into in the final kilometer.  
The #19 nationally-ranked Ole's of St. Olaf would upend the #10-ranked Knights to win the 2024 MIAC Cross Country team title, 35 points to 53.   The Saints broke the 100-point team score barrier for the first time at a MIAC Championship, scoring 99 points to finish third for the first time in the four years it has been a member of the conference.
Head Coach, Chad Salmela, admitted he thought the Saints were a real threat for their first women's podium team finish after the men surprised with a 3^rd place in 2023.  He also knew they probably needed to be close to perfection, to a person, to do it. 

A Word from Coach Salmela
"I saw what [Gustavus Coach, Brendan] Huber saw, going into the meet," confessed Salmela.  "He told me after the race that he'd looked at it last week, and he had us beating them by about 10 points."  Salmela saw that too, but still knew he needed to have the team on point, physically and emotionally, to bring it home.  "I knew we had to have the team dialed, and ideally put all of them under the 24-minute mark, but I knew we'd likely not have one or two actually be able to do that."  In the end, the first four were well under that standard, giving Wood the space she needed to run a gutsy comeback race from an illness ten days earlier. "It was just an amazing performance that Gustavus forced us to deliver," said Salmela.  "It's the stuff that keeps me coaching."

Up Next
The MIAC Championship ends the Saints regular season, with the top seven runners moving onto the NCAA North Regional, on November 16 at Carleton College.