WINONA, Minn. — With nordic ski teams in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference competing for a conference championship for the first time ever this year, Saint Mary’s University coach Ben Popp figured the SMU Invitational would be a perfect preview of the season-ending event.

With Carleton, Gustavus, Macalester, St. John’s, St. Benedict and St. Olaf all taking part in the eight-team invitational, the Cardinals got a good look at what kind of competition they would be facing when they squared off again on Feb. 12-13 in the MIAC Championships.

And the Cardinals’ first-year head coach liked what he saw — sort of.

“I thought we skied very well on Sunday (in the freestyle races),” admitted Popp, whose men placed third in the 10K freestyle race, while the SMU women were fourth in the 5K. “As a whole, we did not ski particularly well on Saturday (in the classical races), but I was very pleased with our effort on Sunday.”

The Cardinal men could have climbed one more notch on Sunday, had it not been for the fact that one of their skiers fell during the race, dropping him eight places, and dropping SMU into third behind St. Olaf and Carleton, respectively.

Caleb Grace (Duluth, Minn.) led the way for the SMU men, posting the team’s top time in both the 10K freestyle (31:57) and the 15K classical (58:16). Garrick Holey (Irondale, Minn.) was second in the freestyle (32:11), followed by Mark Bolster (Kasson, Minn.) (32:37), Michael Uffenbeck (Drummond, Wis.) (34:20) and Pete Schweich (Red Wing, Minn.) (34:48).

In the classical race, Grace was followed by Bolster (1:03.22), Uffenbeck (1:03.33), Joe Thompson (Lake City, Minn.) (1:04.13) and Holey (1:05.40).

Amy Henjum (Woodbury, Minn.) was the top finisher for the Cardinal women, posting team-bests of 18:53 in the 5K freestyle and 48:11 in the 10K classical. Missy Mollick (Hastings, Minn.) posted times of 19:14 and 51:53, respectively, followed by Reghan LaFrance (Duluth, Minn.) (20:31/50:54) and Colleen Bourque (Waukesha, Wis.) (23:10/53:39).

“We’ve been doing a lot of training, and going at it pretty hard, so everyone’s feeling pretty tired right now,” admitted Popp. “I like where we are at right now, I think we are skiing very well, and I think we showed that we will be able to hang right with everyone in the conference.

“Now we just have to keep improving.”