On September 7 the University of Minnesota Duluth’s (UMD) cross country teams will race in their first meet of the season at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

The Bulldogs will have a bit of a different look this year. Head coach Brette Jensen is nearing her maternity leave, so assistant coach David Palmer will take over as interim head coach of the men’s and women’s programs this fall.

“I take after Coach Brette. I’m not going to yell at anyone, I’m going to support them all up. We’re going to have fun at practice. We’re going to laugh and enjoy it, and just have a good time and love the sport of running while we’re out there accomplishing big goals,” Palmer said.

“David’s awesome. He is so in tune with the student-athletes. He’s put in a ton of work this summer, and they all really trust and respect him as well. I think he’s going to do a great job,” Jensen added,

The Bulldog men are coming off an impressive second place finish in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) last season. They return graduate student Jack Van Kempen, who led UMD in five out of six competitions in 2023.

“Taking your training seriously every day. I mean it’s not fun getting up to run every day but just thinking, we were so close to winning the conference championship last year. That was like the little edge that got me out of bed every morning to go and do the little things. Get up, run, stretch, get to the weight room, do that type of stuff,” Van Kempen said.

The women are riding a sixth place finish in the NSIC last year, and bring back Franny Seidel. The now-graduate student was UMD’s second finisher in their final two races of 2023.

For this fall Seidel said the team is, “wanting to improve upon that conference finish. I think we finished sixth last year, and I know for the first 2k of that race we were sitting up high in third. So I know we have the skill and the talent to do that.”

Van Kempen and Seidel were both named 2024 NSIC Preseason Athletes to Watch.