And on Saturday afternoon at the Saint Mary's Alumni Open, that's exactly what he got.

“It was a good first meet for us,” Berndt said. “We took this meet, like most schools, as more of a workout than an actual meet — but I wanted to see us compete today, and we really got after it.”

The Cardinal men collected four of the top six finishers en route to the first-ever first-place finish, while the women settled for a third-place showing.

David Feather (Oak Creek, Wis.) led the way for the Cardinal men, clocking a four-mile time of 22:28.5 to finish third overall, while Jake Traxler (Le Sueur, Minn. / 22:49.20), Robby McGuire (Rochester, Minn. / 22:50.90), and Peter Borash (Bowlus, Minn. / 23:03.50) were right on his heels in fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.

“Our course is a slower course than most of the ones we will compete on, so it gave us a good test,” Berndt said. “Overall, we did well, there are some gaps that we will need to close, but our top runners came through and we have some things to build on going forward.”

Amy Spitzmueller (New Brighton, Minn.) led the way on the women's side, finishing 18th overall with a 5K time of 21:34.8. Kristen Thelen (Rochester, Minn. / 21:59.6) and Emily Dee (Racine, Minn. / 22:08.2) also finished in the top 25 for SMU, placing 23rd and 24, respectively.

“We ran it a little differently on the women's side, in the sense that we really wanted to come out and race with a purpose,” explained Berndt. “And for the most part, I think we did that.”

According to Berndt, one of the advantages to competing on the SMU trails, is that it is a slower course, with more hills. It gives them an opportunity to compete on a tougher course, and also gives the freshmen a race to help them transition from high school to college.

“We really love this race and course for that reason,” Berndt said. “It's a great first race for the freshmen to get acclimated.”