Lake Superior State Cross Country head coach Matt Stith gets it. You can say the right things, build up confidence, show the data points, do everything in the book to prove to your athletes what kind of level they're at. But at some point, they just have to see it for themselves.

"Now it's not just us telling them," he said after the GLIAC Cross Country Championships in Grand Rapids, MI. "They've paid that off and shown everybody that we're not content to just be there. We're not content to just show up and finish in the back of the pack. This is just the beginning. It's a step on the way that we've looked forward to and planned for. And we plan to keep building."

Izzy Yeoman and Noel Black ran excellent times in the women's 6K race, as Lake Superior State finished 8^th out of 11 squads. For a coach whose life motto is to "Get one day better every day," the progress from a year's worth of days is a testament to his creed. "I told the team when we huddled before the race, that I was confident in the result. They went out and proved me right."

Yeoman cut nearly 1:10 off of her time from the GLIAC Championships in 2024. On Saturday, she finished the 6K in 22:39.1, 41st out of 100 runners. Black chopped off nearly a minute and a half from a year ago. On Saturday, she finished just behind Yeoman, at 22:42.6. She was 47^th. Both runners moved up nearly 20 spots from last year's race.

True to form for the two sophomores, they executed their tactics perfectly. Stith said, "They did a great job of establishing aggressive but sustainable positioning early in the race. They put themselves in a position where they were taking some risk, because if you go out too hard and put yourself too far forward, then things can go south in a hurry and you end up with a really rough second half of the race. But in order to run your very best, you have to dance right up to that line."

Even at the end of the race, the two were picking off runners entering the chute. It was a tremendous finish for two talented distance runners and a program on the rise.

For the men's cross country team, the GLIAC Championships produced the effort the head coach was looking for - if not the results.

"This was an example of how some days just aren't your day," said Stith. "Our effort was terrific. Our guys went out and attempted to position themselves aggressively. It didn't work out quite as well on the men's side as it did on the women's side. Our guys gave 100% effort. None of them had an ounce left when they finished the race. They gave all they had which is all I can ask. I'm just as proud of their effort as if things had broken exactly the way we'd hoped."

Birk Seagren finished first on the team in the 8K race with a time of 27:05.9. It's a remarkable rise for the freshman from Hancock, MI. In the season's opening race, the Jeff Drenth Memorial, he finished 4^th for LSSU.

"Birk and a couple of other guys like Noah Hernandez and Nathaniel Kilgore really stepped up and gave us a shot in the arm," Stith said. "They responded to the rough circumstances with Alex [Tyndall] being out and the race not breaking our way very well. Those guys really gave us a boost by putting themselves out there and taking a crack. We're really excited about what that tells us about the kind of people we have on this team."

Hernandez finished at 27:42.2, while Kilgore came in at 27:49.8. Tyndall, Seagren and Hernandez are all freshmen, while Kilgore and Gavin Guggemos are just sophomores. The Lakers are extremely young, competing in an excellent conference. The GLIAC has plenty of experience and quality. Stith pointed out that his teams really are much younger than much of their competition.

"The adjustment for men, in particular, because of the longer race distance, is one of the toughest transitions anywhere in college sports. Our guys have handled that pretty well. A lot of the freshmen that you see on other teams are actually redshirt freshmen and spent a whole year training before they got out here competing. Our freshman, a year ago, were out here competing in 5K's in high school. For them to be as big a part of the team as they have become is really encouraging for the future."

As excited as he is about the present, Stith's focus remains on getting one day better every day. For both cross country teams, he's excited, impressed, eager to continue the journey every day. The best is yet to come. Put in the work and enjoy every minute of it.

"We are young and nowhere near as good as we're going to be yet."

The Lakers compete in the NCAA Regionals on November 8th in Kenosha, WI. They previously ran at this course, hosted by Wisconsin-Parkside, on September 27^th at the Lucian Rosa Invitational.