Tony Weber

The St. Mary’s University Spires out of Leavenworth have had a strong cross country program and over the past few years have been one of the best in NAIA. This season is no different as the Spire men’s cross country as they currently rank 13th in the national NAIA Top 25.

A key piece to the success of St. Mary’s has been former Pleasant Ridge Ram, Tony Weber who is in his junior year at St. Mary’s and continuing his strong running career building upon a great sophomore campaign. This year Weber has competed in three of the four competitions for the Spires and done well in all three with a pair of Top 10 finishes. The most recent action saw Weber post a time of 25:05.3 at the Hays Invitational competing in the Gold division race an 8K taking 30th place out of 176 runners on the day.

The former Ram started the season strong with a sixth and seventh place finish in the first two competitions of the season. Weber started the year with his team in Hutchinson at the Terry Masteron Twilight Classic and took sixth place with a time of 20:49.3 in a four mile race, competing against 116 other runners in the action. Tony’s sixth place finish helped the Rams take third as a team out of 15 teams. At the Notre Dame National Catholic Invite, Weber raced to a time of 25:52.5 to place 8th out of 204 runners in the race he competed in (college division – 8K race) as the Spires took seventh as a team out of 28 teams. His time at the Notre Dame Invite out of all the runners on the day including Division I runners would have given him an overall Top 20 performance out of 291 runners.

Weber entered his junior year as an All-KCAC preseason honoree after taking second place in the KCAC Championship race last year behind a time of 25:37.4, finishing only seconds behind his teammate, while the Spire men won the KCAC title and qualified for NAIA Nationals. At the National Championship as a sophomore, Weber finished 45th out of 326 runners posting a time of 25:40.4, while the Spires finished second out of 30 teams at Nationals.

In high school the former Pleasant Ridge Ram closed out his running career strong taking second in Class 3A at State in cross country (16:34.48), while winning the Northeast Kansas League title and also took fourth in the 3200 meter and seventh in the 1600 meter runs in Class 3A at State track. Weber as a junior in high school took ninth at State in Class 3A in 2012 and won the Delaware Valley League title.

Continuing to find success, Weber is looking for a strong finish to cap his junior year at St. Mary’s as the Spires have their sights set on another strong finish to the year as they look to defend their KCAC men’s title and challenge at Nationals again.