WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota men's and women's cross country teams kick off their season at home on Saturday, as the Cardinals host the four-team Saint Mary's Alumni Open.
 
The Saint Mary's Alumni Open Field:
• Saint Mary's, Winona State, Luther, St. Thomas (women), UM-Duluth (men), Saint Mary's Alumni
 
The Saint Mary's Alumni Open Courses:
• Men's | Women's
 
GameDay Live On The Web:
• Video Preview
 
The Cardinals' Last Action:
• Saturday's Saint Mary's Alumni Open is the 2015 season-opener for the Cardinals.
 
The Cardinals at the Saint Mary's Alumni Open—A Year Ago:
• September 6, 2014: Aaron Haley (Plainview, Minn.) blew away the rest of the men's field, winning the four-mile race in a time of 22:41—nearly a minute faster than Billy Eifert of Winona State, who finished second with a time of 23:38. Fueled by Haley's first-place effort, the Cardinal men placed second in the four-team Saint Mary's Alumni Open meet, while the Saint Mary's women—behind a 12th-place individual showing from Katie Stolz (Forest Lake, Minn.)—finished third in their four-team meet | Recap
 
The Cardinals Up Next:
• The Cardinals are off until September 18, when they head to South Bend, Ind., to take part in the Notre Dame Catholic Invitational.
 
Scouting The Saint Mary's Cardinals:
2015 Rosters: Men * Women | 2015 Schedule | 2014 Individual Meet Times
• Jovan Newsum (Glendale Heights, Ill.) placed 107th at the NCAA Division III National Championships, posting a school-record 8K time of 25:24. … Newsum—the first male in program history to run in the national championships—broke the school's 8K record in each of his last three races. … Saint Mary's boasted a pair of all-region performers in 2014, as Newsum placed 25th in the men's race and Katie Stolz (Forest Lake, Minn.) was 35th in the women's race at the NCAA Central Regional. … Newsum clocked a then-school-record 8K time of 25:40 en route to his all-region honor, while Stolz broke the school's 6K record with a time of 22:51. … It was the second straight all-region honor for Stolz—who also broke the school record in the 6K at last season's Central Regional. … Aaron Haley (Plainview, Minn.), who had owned the school's 8K record prior to Newsum's last-season assault—was the second Cardinal across the finish line at the season-ending NCAA Central Regional, touring the 8K course in 26:07. It marked the second straight meet Newsum and Haley finished 1-2 for Saint Mary's—the duo clocked times of 26:06 and 26:07, respectively to earn honorable-mention All-MIAC honors at the conference championships two weeks prior. … Austin O'Hare (Rushford, Minn. / 27:27), Jase Pater (Adrian, Minn. / 27:45), Brandon Krogman (Owatonna, Minn. / 28:32), Andy Meyer (Tucson, Ariz. / 29:04), and Andrew Markert (St. Paul, Minn. / 29:28) rounded out the Cardinals' top seven Central Region runners. … Allie Thiel (Burr Ridge, Ill.) was second to Stolz for the Cardinal women in the season-ending NCAA regional event with a 6K time of 24:40, followed by Bridget Hayes (Chicago, Ill. / 25:05), Paige Schernecker (Manawa, Wis. / 25:18), Alicia Berkenes (25:30), Mary Hayes (Chicago, Ill. / 25:33), and Jessie Burns (Chanhassen, Minn. / 26:22). … The Cardinal men's seventh-place finish at the conference championships last season was the highest in coach Ward Berndt's 10 years at the helm.