WINONA, Minn. — You’ll have to forgive Saint Mary’s University nordic ski coach Ben Popp if he seems a bit giddy.

It’s just that, for the first time in three races, his Cardinal ski teams skied up to their potential — and then some.

The Cardinals turned in their best performance of the season last weekend at the Central Regional, and their effort had Popp feeling sky-high.

“That was by far our best effort yet, especially on Sunday,” said Popp, whose men placed 7th in the 10K freestyle race and eighth in the 20K classical, while the women were eighth in both events. “We skied so much better than we had the two previous weekends — we were more confident and we weren’t quite as intimidated by the presence of the bigger schools.”

Last week at the Macalester Invitational, the Cardinals seemed in awe of the skiing ability of the teams from UW-Green Bay, Northern Michigan and Alaska-Fairbanks.

This week, the Cardinals paid the regional powers no mind and went about their own business — and the results were impressive.

Caleb Grace (Duluth, Minn.) led the way for the Cardinal men, clocking a time of 24:57 in the 10K freestyle event, then added a team-leading time of 56:20 in the 20K classical race. Mark Bolster (Kasson, Minn.) posted times of 25:29 and 1:02:43 in the 10K and 20K, respectively, followed by Garrick Holey (Irondale, Minn.) (25:57/59:50), Pete Schweich (Red Wing, Minn.) (27:40/1:07:37) and Mike Uffenbeck (Drummond, Wis.) (28:28/1:02:08).

On the women’s side, Amy Henjum (Woodbury, Minn.) was the team’s top skier in both the 5K freestyle and 10K classical, racing to times of 15:26 and 53:18, respectively. Missy Mollick (Hastings, Minn.) chipped in times of 15:53 and 55:12, while Reghan LaFrance (Duluth, Minn.) finished in 17:29 and 58:18.