Sentinels in Motion (November 20th, 2025)

A look into the upcoming Winter Season

  The winter activities schedule is upon us!  This will be the first year for a MSHSL Stella Maris Academy varsity basketball team. We will be playing our home games at the College of St. Scholastica and currently have 19 games scheduled for our first year. In addition to a new basketball team, Stella Maris Academy has our first boys hockey team.   The hockey team is a new “co-op” team with Two Harbors, Silver Bay and Cook  County and is named the North Shore Storm!   Other activities include boys and girls elementary and junior high basketball (5 teams in total), alpine skiing, nordic skiing, one act play and winter martial arts. 

“In the News”

Conference Membership - For the last couple years, SMA has pursued conference membership in the sports that have varsity MSHSL teams. The reasons for this are numerous and include the ability of teams and individuals to be recognized for their achievements, to create opportunities to participate in conference run events and to more easily schedule contests with local teams.  Stella Maris Academy has been accepted into the Polar League Conference for boys basketball, B/G Cross Country Running, B/G track and softball.  When we offer varsity girls basketball and volleyball, our plan to have those sports also compete in the Polar League Conference.  The teams in the Polar League include Cook County, Cromwell-Wright, Floodwood, McGregor, South Ridge, Two Harbors, Silver Bay,Barnum, Carlton Wrenshall, Esko and Moose Lake.  Stella Maris Academy has also just joined the Iron Range Conference for boys and girls golf along with girls swimming.  

Talent Show - please save March 14 for a dinner followed by a Talent Show at the College of St. Scholastica’s Mitchell Auditorium.  

Would you like to attend a Stella Maris Academy competition?  The schedule can be found by going to our activities web site at sentinelactivities.academy.  Simply click on the calendar and search by team or by dates that work for you!

Cross Country Running - Boys and Girls

The 2025 Cross Country season was an incredible success, marked by a record number of runners joining the team. This year’s Junior High team welcomed several rookies who brought fresh energy and enthusiasm to our program. Our returning athletes also set the tone early with strong performances at the Twin Ports Invitational, the Dan Conway Classic, the Paul Bauer Invitational, the Ely Invitational, and the return of the Swain Meet hosted at Enger Golf Course.

At the Section 7A meet, both the boys’ and girls’ varsity teams achieved significant improvements in their overall rankings compared to last season. Several athletes delivered standout performances, including eighth grader Bryn Zallar, who placed 14th overall with a time of 20:47; ninth grader Caleb Gilbertson, who finished 15th with a time of 17:29; and eighth grader Aiden Cernohous, who earned 8th place with a time of 17:08.

Cernohous qualified individually for the State Meet, held at the Les Bolstad Course at the University of Minnesota, where he proudly represented Stella Maris Academy—a first for the school at the State Cross Country Meet. It was a memorable season full of growth, spirit, and achievement. The team is already looking forward to building on this success next year. 

-Coach Elizabeth Nygaard

Girls Tennis

The best part about the girls tennis team is our faithful culture and close-knit community. These girls love being on the court together and spending time with each other outside of tennis. With our practices, matches, fun trips, team bonding activities, and stops at Dairy Queen, these girls are growing together as beloved daughters of Christ. A highlight of the season is going to Fall Harvest Orchard in Delano. The girls get to try out all of the orchard activities, pet animals, and pick apples. Another highlight was raising enough funds to purchase a ball machine for our program. The girls got to try it out at the end of the season and are looking forward to using it in the future.

The girls tennis team continues to grow and find more success. This year, we had more varsity matches than we have ever scheduled, which was a great experience for our girls. This year, we also had 5 varsity wins, more than doubling our wins from last year. Each player found success at different points in the season. Our singles players had a lot of wins this year, but our doubles teams started to shine about halfway through the season. This doubles success correlated to a lot more team wins. Our elementary program (4th-6th grade) continues to grow. These younger girls are anxious to be a part of the high school team soon! In 4th-12th grade, there were 52 total players this year. 

-Coach Sjomeling

Girls Swim 

Ashley Ring, a Senior at SMA shared her love for swimming and highlighted the growth of her love for her team as well.

 “I really love swimming, being with everyone at practice. We've all grown so much as swimmers and as friends, it's just been really fun this year” She also said one thing that people don't know about swimming or think about swimming is that it is scary, she said, “A lot of people think that swimming is scary. Swimming is actually super fun.” When she was asked about her favorite memory from this year she talked about a festive tradition: “Definitely the pumpkin meet. We have these fun Halloween caps and it’s a fun meet where you can swim whatever you want” Ashley's dedication and her enthusiasm for both her sport and her team are clearly shown as she wraps up her high school swimming career.

This year we had 22 incredible swimmers represent Stella Maris Academy on the Girls JH, JV, and V Swim Teams. 

We competed in 14 swim meets throughout the season, most of them being Varsity Invitationals and meets with several area teams in attendance. 

They all showed impressive dedication to the sport and to their teammates throughout the season. Some of our favorite moments are the team dinners together before a big meet, our annual fall hike on the SMA trail and the Halloween themed swim meet at Mesabi East. 

This season we also got to celebrate our very first Senior, Ashley Ring during our meet with NorthEast Range-Ely. We are so thankful for her leadership on the team these past years and she will be greatly missed.

G/B Fall Trap

It was another great season for our trap team! Our goals this year were very simple., 1. Be safe. 2. Have fun and 3. Get better each week! By all measures, we achieved our goals. In fact,  this fall Christopher Gannucci  on the boys side and Hanna Kime on the girls side each finished in the top 25 in our conference! 

 Our team continues to grow from just 4 team members our first season to 28 members this fall!  With growth comes some growing pains and logistical challenges. With the help of the other coaches and some involvement from our parents, we were easily able to meet the challenges.  And with even more growth anticipated for our spring season coach Brandon Kime, Chris May, Pat Pfahl and myself look forward to keeping the program running smooth, provide more opportunities for the Stella students and helping our athletes become more competitive every week! 

Rolf Flaig, Trap Coach

Stella Maris Academy

G/B Soccer

The recent soccer season proved to be a successful and memorable one for both the Boys and Girls teams. Athletes Morgan Palen and Charlie Eklund both shared their take on the highlights of the season. 

For the Girls soccer team their season goal was about communication and aggressiveness. Morgan said “Our goals this year was having better communication and that is what definitely helped us win a lot of our games this year” That focus on improved teamwork and communication paid off in a strong finish at their final tournament “Our last game on our tournament we got second place, and we won most of our games throughout the season” Off the field Morgan said that she created strong social bonds with her teammates “They would have to be hanging out with friends at the banquets and at practices”

For the Boys soccer team their season goal was focused on growth as a team. An 8th grader, Charlie Eklund said “Our goal was to try to get better as a team and we definitely did that” This goal of growth led to notable victories, one that stood out the most to Charlie was winning against Mesabi East, "Winning our 2 games against Mesabi East and Definitely getting better as a team throughout the season.” For Charlie the most memorable moment he had with his team were “The bus rides are always super fun and helped us get to know each other better” showing how the time spent off the field is just as important than it is being on the field 

Both the boys and girls soccer team have alot of celebrate, with a season of being able to achieve their goals, winning games, and building long lasting friendships.

Football

Peter Kenny, a junior on the Proctor football team, shared some of his thoughts and memories from his season, talking about team growth and a special moment on the field. 

Peter talked about the positive impact this season has had on himself and his team. "A lot of us got better at football and got closer as teammates this year, we made better friendships with each other” He also expressed his appreciation for the sportsmanship shown by the Proctor football team towards the SMA athletes. “The Proctor football team was really welcoming to the Stella team again this year. They are all really nice guys and it was a really great experience.” Peter was asked about his favorite memory from the whole season and he didn't hesitate to point out one of their successes that helped set a positive tone for their team “The first touchdown that we had, that was my favorite memory of all season.” The high school football season for the year may be over, but for Peter his most valuable takeaways are going to be the friendships and memories that he made from this football season.