St. Scholastica Football Team Holds First Fall Practice of 2021

The roster will be full of new faces, including the biggest freshman class since 2012.

DULUTH, Minn. – After nearly a two-year layoff, the CSS football team gathered at Saints Field for the first day of fall practices.

“There was no motivation to get out of bed. It was just go, you know,” linebacker Mack Nelson said.

“To finally have that, that camp feel, is awesome,” said running back Bryceton Butkiewicz.

The roster will be full of new faces, including the biggest freshman class since 2012. And that means added responsibility for the upperclassmen.

“One of the biggest things I think as leadership goes here up on the field is just making sure guys know it’s OK to mess up. Biggest thing is just go out there and go 100 miles an hour and we’ll make up the mistakes later in the meetings,” Nelson said.

One of the biggest questions going into the season will be how CSS will look to fill the shoes of quarterback Zach Edwards, who graduated in 2019 after a record-breaking career.

“Nobody’s going to be another Zach Edwards. We’re going to get somebody else that’s going to be the first of that person, right? So we’ll know who we are probably in the next 10-15 practices a little bit more than we are right now,” head coach Mike Heffernan said.

And the Saints will also be preparing for their first season in the MIAC that features some of the top teams in Division III, like Saint John’s and Bethel.

“This is definitely the best conference in Minnesota and that’s exactly where we want to be. We know that the competition is going to be a step up and you got to be ready for it,” said Butkiewicz.

“We’re going to see great coaches, great players, great traditions within all those universities and colleges. We understand the challenge and we’re just going to focus on ourselves and continue to try and get better every day,” Heffernan said.

CSS will open their season with a non-conference game at home September 4th against Sewanee.