Did someone say four-peat? On Nov. 1, St. Olaf Men’s Cross Country won its fourth consecutive Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) championship. This is the second time this century that the team has won at least four straight MIAC championships, as the Oles won every year from 2012-2016.
St. Olaf, currently No. 20 in the Division III National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rankings, won with 33 points, 51 points lower than second-place Carleton College. The Oles’ top-five finishers were all within the top-11 finishers of the entire field. Kevin Turlington ’26 led the Oles with a second-place finish, while Jack Deaver ’26 finished fifth, Gael Manzur Strandlund ’26 finished sixth, Eli Doran ’26 finished ninth, and Cooper Gundersen ’28 rounded out the point scorers in 11th. Ignatius Fitzgerald ’26, Connor Hitchcock ’29, Alex Bjork ’27, and Angelo Fiataruolo ’26 also finished in the top 20.
The Oles’ mindset was simple: secure the four-peat.
“Going into the meet, [the mindset] was, you know, can we do this one more time,” Fiataruolo said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger.
Fiataruolo and his senior teammates will graduate from St. Olaf having won the MIAC Championship every year.
“To get that fourth title means a lot for me,” Fiataruolo said.
St. Olaf Men’s Cross Country is now focusing on the NCAA Division III North Region Championship on Nov. 15 in Colfax, Wis. In a competitive field featuring three teams ranked 13th and higher, including No. 1-ranked University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, the Oles’ top runners will look to secure an at-large bid into the NCAA Division III National Championships on Nov. 22 in Spartanburg, S.C.
