5 October 2023
St. Agnes has established itself as a football powerhouse in recent years.
Other than the COVID year — when the Aggies went 5-1 — the St. Paul hasn’t won fewer than seven games in a season since 2018.
This year is no exception. Already 5-0 heading into its road game Friday in Austin, Minn., St. Agnes is ranked No. 6 in the Associated Press’ Class 2A state poll.
But what’s more impressive this season is the competition against which St. Agnes is compiling its victories. The Aggies have wins over Hill-Murray, a Class 4A school that has beaten defending Class 4A champion Simley this fall, and Class 3A Holy Family, led by coaching savant Dan O’Brien.
St. Agnes senior lineman Raphael Uhlenkott runs through a tunnel of his teammates during pregame introductions prior to a game in September 2023. (Courtesy of St. Agnes)
“It’s awesome to be going into games where we’re underdogs, and then coming out on top,” senior lineman Cadman Foley said. ““Going into that (Hill-Murray) game, the general consensus was we were the big underdogs and were going to get clocked. … It felt great to just go in, pound the ball on them and come away with a win.
“That was a really big moment, I think, for the team’s confidence in general, knowing that we can play with the big dogs, and we’ll come out on top.”
How can a Class 2A program step up in divisions on a weekly basis and beat quality foes?
“With how everybody pulls each other along, we have no problem going against bigger schools. We handle them fine,” senior tight end Cegan Flood said. “Everybody battles together as one, and nobody takes the credit for themselves. We all give it to each other.”
The mentality stems back to the three things second-year head coach Sam Thompson asks his guys to be — grateful, tough and devoted.
“Grateful for each other, grateful to be out there and try to have positive attitudes no matter what,” Thompson said. “And devoted to each other. There’s no I in it. We’re a big family, we’re all brothers.”
But the program is truly rooted in the third trait — toughness. The Aggies practice at Front Rec Center in St. Paul — “it’s straight dirt,” Thompson noted. Perfect. Their identity is in-the-mud football. On offense, the Aggies want to pound the rock, resorting to the air only when required. On defense, St. Agnes also aims to dominate up front. Good luck running on the Aggies.
“I think in football, a lot of people want to be tough. You have to be tough to win in this game. But it’s something that these guys really, really live out,” Thompson said. “We’re tough in practice. We’re tough in how we practice. And if that all translates during the week, hopefully we’ll be a lot tougher on Friday night than the guy we line up against.”
And, when they are, there is no better feeling.
“There’s nothing more fun than that, knowing that you play four quarters of just smashing the other dude in front of you, and by the end of the night, he knows that he lost,” Foley said. “There’s nothing more fun than that. It’s just pure competition of who can be the better man.”
But achieving that status is not an individual effort.
St. Agnes players line the goal line during a game in September 2023. (Courtesy of St. Agnes)
“If you’re in it by yourself, you’re going to fail. There’s no stopping failure,” Foley said. “But it’s really just having a bunch of your brothers around you saying, ‘You can’t take a play off. I know you’re better than that, stop slacking.’ It really is just a group desire to be tough. You can’t do it by yourself.”
“It’s all about one guy holding the next guy accountable and being there for each other and pushing each other when we’re going through these practices,” senior running back Adam Hernandez said. “The culture matters.”
Senior linebacker Raphael Uhlenkott noted he would not have been able to wake up at 5:30 a.m. every morning in the offseason to come in and lift if his teammates and coaches weren’t doing the same. They wouldn’t let him down, so how could he do it to them?
“I know every guy on the team is going to put his body on the line for me. We’ve really had that coached to us, that it isn’t about you, it’s about the guy next to you, and fighting for the guy next to you,” Uhlenkott said. “Just the overall team spirit and loyalty of this team, it’s completely different. Us captains went to a captain meeting at the beginning of the year and talked about good, great and legacy teams. And I think we’ve really built a legacy team as far as brotherhood and loyalty goes.”
Thus far, those characteristics have translated into a dominant football team on a weekly basis. That’s where the focus lies for the Aggies. Thompson preaches one game, one week at a time. But even he noted that with these results to date, St. Agnes has yet to put its best game together. There is more potential for this team to capture. And if the Aggies can do that, well, look out. For as good as St. Agnes has been in recent years, the program still hasn’t appeared in a state tournament since 1997.
“We’re all in here hoping to and looking forward to making a state run,” Foley said. “That’s the goal for this season, and that will be what, I think, makes it the best season of all of our high school careers.”
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