Saint Martin’s University athletics gear up for 2024 fall season

With the return of the 2024-25 Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) looming for the fall season, Saint Martin’s University’s athletic programs gear up to compete with the best student-athletes of the conference with their revamped Saints squads across all upcoming sports this fall.

For women’s volleyball, the Saints volleyball team is expected to continue its ascent in the conference. Coming off  their best season by far last year, they are now under the stewardship of newly hired head coach Wade Taylor. Taylor replaced Seattle University-bound Dan Behnke after four years with the Saints. Taylor will bring his expertise to the Saints, coming fresh from his assistant coaching stint at Cal State University, the winners of the 2023 DII National Championship.

With the return of core players like preseason’s all-conference awardee Emily Garten and the acquisition of notable recruits such as Mia Arambula and Kingsley Mason, Taylor and the girls will attempt to shake off preseason expectations and better their last season record of 10 wins and 8 defeats in the GNAC. They will kick off their season participating in the Hawaii Hilo and Northwest Nazarene Tournament before GNAC competition, which is expected to start September 19.

Saint Martin’s men’s and women’s cross country teams are also ready to make waves in this season’s GNAC cross-country events, as first-year head coach Gabriel Trimbur will handle both squads. Trimbur, who was the assistant coach of the DI Seattle University XC team before coming to Lacey, said that he will focus on pushing his athletes to reach new heights. Notable student-athletes from this event include Kainalu Pagente and Elijah Dale for the men and Kya Ramirez and Maddy Vu for the women’s team.

Despite low preseason poll rankings for both men’s and women’s events, the Saints' soccer teams are undeterred and will attempt to break expectations in this upcoming season. The men’s team, coached by long-time mentor Rob Walker, will rely on their squad familiarity and chemistry and extensive playing experience, with key players such as midfielder Xander Koenig, and forwards Angel Alvarado-Fajardo and Ethan Jud. The women’s team, led by second-year coach Derek Faulkner, will get a huge boost from returning key players Inara Lopes De Andrade in midfield and Flavia Burrell in goal along with notable recruits Hinata Kojima from Japan and Eve Charles from Grenada.

The Saints men’s soccer team will try to better their last season finish of second last with nine points from a 2-6-3 win-loss-draw season, while the women’s team will have the same goal on improving from their last place position in 2023, having a 1-7-6 win-loss-draw record and still finding their first win since September last year. Both teams will have a string of friendly matches and scrimmages for the following weeks until the start of the GNAC season, where the men’s team will host Seattle Pacific on October 3 while the women’s team travel to face Western Oregon first on September 26 to start the season.

Meanwhile, the Saints golf team will also expect to go full swing, as Anne Bahr will head both men’s and women’s golf programs for the first time in her career.