Kodiaks running off to nationals

By Lethbridge Herald on October 27, 2025.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

For the second consecutive year, the Lethbridge Polytechnic Kodiaks cross-country teams are heading to nationals after the men placed second and the women’s placed third at the ACAC championships in Grande Prairie on Saturday.

“The guys did as predicted and the girls did way better than predicted,” said Simon Schaerz, Kodiaks cross-country head coach.

Schaerz thought the men ran the track really well which involved many turns and ups and downs that were frequent.

“You had to put in a good effort for the entirety of the race (and) slowly chip away, and so the guys did that for sure and did quite well,” said Schaerz

Schaerz felt the women pulled together to find their way on to the podium.

“With the girls, they came together, and each every one of them had a really fantastic race despite some injuries and a little bit of sickness,” said Schaerz.

Ethan Grasmeyer was the top Kodiak men’s finisher as he came in fourth with a time of 27:30 on the eight-kilometre loop and  on the women’s side Katrina Michel (12th- 00:25:41) and Kate Block (14th- 00:26:06) came in the top 15.

Red Deer Queens won the banner and Medicine Hat came second on women’s side.

The Red Deer Kings won the banner on the men’s side and Concordia University came third.

Schaerz said very exciting , when asked about going back to nationals.

“Nationals is always an event that teams look forward to and qualification is challenging in our conference and so being able to qualify and now go certainly will be a treat for them ,” said Schaerz.

A majority of the work has been done, in Schaerz view, in terms of training for nationals.

“This week we have a relatively high-quality training week planned,” said Schaerz.

 “Then once we get out there it will be go to the course, check it out, run it … and then it’s race day.”

The Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association Cross-Country championships are Nov. 7-8 in P.E.I.

Basketball

The Kodiak men’s basketball team moved to 2-0 on the season after defeating St. Mary’s University 69-62 on Saturday.

Levi Balderson led the Kodiaks with 14 points, nine rebounds and five steals.

As for the Kodiak women’s volleyball team, they fell to 0-2 on the season after falling to St. Mary’s 84-51 on Saturday.

Bailey Blackmore drained 13 points to lead the Kodiaks offence, while Chase Wells-Creighton had nine rebounds to lead that category and Summer Long turned the ball over 10 times.