COLFAX, Wis. – A lot changed in the 72 hours leading up to the 2025 Blugold Invitational, hosted by the University of Wisconson Eau Claire, at Whitetail Golf Course in Colfax, Wisconsin.  Set as a Friday evening "twilight," the 2025 edition also served as the preview for the NCAA North Regional on November 15^th.  But forecasts threatened cancellation with extreme warm temperatures expected Friday evening.

On Tuesday, Blugold organizers moved the twilight to a 9:30 a.m. "sunrise" start to avoid extreme heat,.

With 40 of the original 45 teams comitted to the new timeline, teams converged on Colfax early Friday morning, with the varsity men kicking it off over 8 kilometers. 

But even by the 9:30 a.m. start time, the mercury was an unseasonable 70 degrees, and temps climbed quickly.

The heat didn't affect Augsberg's, Mohammed Bati, winning in relatively-quick 24:42.6.  Unattached University of Minnesota redshirt freshmen, Will Weber (24:49.0) and Sal Wirth (24:49.5) finished second and third.   

Ashton Niemi (Bemidji, Minn./Bemidji HS) re-emerged as the front runner for the Saints men after leading the team in the opening 5km at the Ole Opener on August 29,^th for the first time in his career.  He set a new 8k personal record on the steamy Blugold course, finishing 161^st in a time of 27:46.5.  A fest strides behind, scoring for the first time this season, Max Rogers (Moorhead, MN/Moorhead HS) threw down his second-best 8km finishing 172nd in a time of 27:47.8.  Kai Donnelly (Burlington, VT/Burlington High School) kept his perfect 2025 scoring streak alive  while shaving more than 30 seconds off of his 8km PR, finishing with a time 28:16.7 in 187^th place.  Nikolas Stoufis also kept his scoring string alive as the fourth Saint on the day, finishing 205^th in 28:31.6, and Ben Westholm (Duluth MN/Duluth East HS) scored for the first time this season, finishing 213^th in 28:42.3 for a season's best time by 1 minute 46 seconds, to round out the Saints' scoring.

The University of Wisconsin Platteville won the team title with a score of 111, just 7 points ahead of UW Stevens Point in second with 118 points, while Hope College finished 3^rd with 119.

The Saints tallied 704 points to finish 25th of 32 teams, and 5th of 9 MIAC schools on hand.

It was the largest spread of the Saint's men's team performances by nearly double, as the Saints five scorers had kept within about a half minute in the first two meets of the year, which has been their scoring strong point to date. 

Saints head coach, Chad Salmela chalked that spread up to the hot, humid, conditions. 

"It's hard to know what you're going to get when it's like this," said Salmela, referring to the extreme heat and humidity.  "Seems like we can usually expect a meet like this early every season coming off of summer, but those are easier to dismiss as we are never in the kind of shape to want or expect success." 

As the season moves towards Fall, Salmela says the cold weather and race fitness usually work in harmony, but today was a relatively new phenomenon that he feels didn't indicate what his men's team can truly do, especially when his team hasn't many hot days since the start of the season. 

"We kind of get sense of who can run in that kind of heat and who can't, the more we get to know them, so when you get another really hot one this late, all you can really do is just go run and hope for the best."

The tight scoring spread the Saints men enjoyed "simply got thrown out the window" due to the conditions, according to the coach.  "We had some awesome performances still, but we had big outliers on the downside too, and that hurts scoring."  Salmela felt they did the best they could, and was "proud of everyone's effort," taking some comfort in that he thinks the team is in better shape than the outcome, and it's part of being a northern team.  "We have the advantage when it gets colder, and it always gets colder."

The Saints return to action October 18^th at the Interregional Invitational in Rock, Island, Il, hosted by Augustana College.