The Saint John’s football team and College of Saint Benedict volleyball team each punched their tickets to NCAA Division III tournament play this past weekend.
So did SJU senior cross country runner Cole Stencel, who earned an at-large berth in the Division III national meet, which will be held this Saturday (Nov. 22) at the Roger Millikin Cross Country Course in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
The Johnnie football team beat St. Olaf 63-21 at Clemens Stadium this past Saturday (Nov. 15) to finish the regular season 9-1, then received an at-large bid to the Division III playoff field when the pairings were announced Sunday afternoon.
SJU – ranked No. 7 in the final D3football.com Division III top 25 – got a first-round bye and will play host to Monmouth (Illinois) in the second round at noon on Nov. 29, at Clemens Stadium.
The Scots (9-1) won this season’s Midwest Conference title to earn that league’s automatic postseason bid. The Johnnies faced Monmouth in the first round of the 2005 playoffs.
The CSB volleyball team, meanwhile, completed its second-straight Cinderella run to the MIAC playoff title by downing St. Olaf 3-2 in an instant classic conference title match Saturday night in Northfield.
The third-seeded Bennies (21-6) dropped the first two sets, then rallied to win the next three in a row – including a 17-15 victory in the decisive fifth set when each team had a shot at match point.
That meant CSB earned the MIAC’s automatic Division III tournament bid for the second season in a row. And, for the second season in a row, the Bennies will meet Washington (Missouri) University in the first round of an eight-team pod hosted by Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
The Bears – who defeated CSB 3-0 (25-18, 25-11, 25-13) last year at Wisconsin-Whitewater – bring a record of 22-8 into this season’s matchup, which will be played Thursday.
The winner of that match will meet the winner between Dubuque (25-4) and Cornell (19-10) in the second round Friday, with the winner there moving on to the third round Saturday.
Stencel, meanwhile, is making his first appearance at the national meet. He finished 23rd out of 214 runners at the NCAA North Regional held Saturday in Colfax, Wisconsin.
He has led the Johnnies in all six varsity races this fall.