St. Thomas entered its game against the Presbyterian Blue Hose on Saturday at O’Shaughnessy Stadium knowing they would need some help in order to keep their hopes alive for a Pioneer Football League title and an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs.

It became a moot point when the Tommies failed to help themselves.

On a day when they struggled on both sides of the ball, but more so on offense, St. Thomas ended the league portion of their schedule with a 23-9 loss to the Blue Hose on Senior Day to drop to 5-3 (8-3 overall).

They end their season next week with a non-conference game at North Dakota State, the nation’s top-ranked team.

“Certainly it was an off day,” said St. Thomas head coach Glenn Caruso. “There are a lot of days when we’re ‘on’ or at our A-plus game — that’s football. You’ve got to find ways to win differently against really good opponents. I thought Presbyterian found more ways. No. It wasn’t a good day for us. Presbyterian had something to do with that.”

The performance was surprising due to how much was at stake.

“It was a huge game for a lot of different reasons,” said senior linebacker Jordan Pendleton. “Mainly for our seniors, the people who have bled and lost sleep over this team. That’s who we wanted to play for.”

While the defense had its moments, the Tommies’ offense never got untracked.

After piling up the points during a five-game winning streak, the offense failed to get into the end zone. Quarterback Andy Peters, who has been a standout this season, had a rough day. Peters completed 16 of 31 passes for 144 yards. He threw two interceptions and was sacked four times.

“It was just about getting a rhythm,” said senior receiver JaShawn Todd. “I feel like we just didn’t get into a groove that we normally get in. At the end of the day, the ball just didn’t roll our way.”

The focus and effort was there, Caruso said. His team simply didn’t make enough plays.

“We have to make sure that when we get the opportunities we capitalize on them,” Caruso said. “Dropped interceptions. A mistake on special teams by your opponent and you don’t capitalize on it. Four dropped balls on the offensive side and taking a sack in the red zone.”

The Blue Hose led 10-0 at halftime, with St. Thomas managing only 62 yards of offense — including 7 rushing yards. Despite a poor first half, the Tommies were still in the game.

“There were so many things that we could have done better,” Caruso said. “I have a list of them, and there were a half dozen of really clear things. So the message (at halftime) was to just try to rein them back in and realize we don’t have do anything magical, we just have to play better.”

St. Thomas got on the the board with a field goal in their first possession of the second half. When Branden Smith followed with an interception returned for a touchdown, the Tommies were poised to tie the game. But Caruso elected to go for a two-point conversion, but the rush following a fake kick came up short. Caruso said the offense’s inability to move the football led to the decision.

The Blue Hose took a 17-9 lead in the third quarter on a 31-yard touchdown pass. St. Thomas responded with a drive, but on fourth-and-3 from the Presbyterian 25 yard line, Peters was sacked. Presbyterian added a final touchdown with less than two minutes to play.

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Over the 50 years the Guthrie Theater’s been presenting Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” no adaptation has engaged me as much as the current one created by Lavina Jadhwani.

She developed the idea of having Dickens’ eloquently clever narration delivered by a kind of Greek chorus of 1840s Londoners, which serves to emphasize that the self-isolating and miserable Ebenezer Scrooge is part of a community, whether he likes it or not. And that a key to his transformation is the desire to find joy through connection with others.

Ebenezer Scrooge (David Beach, right) looks on as his younger self (Daniel Petzold, center) dances with his one-time fiancee, Belle (Stephanie Anne Bertumen, left), in the Guthrie Theater’s production of “A Christmas Carol,” running through Dec. 28, 2025, on the theater’s Wurtele Thrust Stage. (Courtesy of Dan Norman)

Jadhwani died of cancer in September, and I found myself wondering after Friday night’s opening performance if that loss isn’t lingering over this year’s production. Both Guthrie Artistic Director Joseph Haj and the current director, Addie Gorlin-Han, have spoken of what a valuable sounding board Jadhwani was when making key staging decisions, and anyone who’s tried to continue working while processing grief knows that summoning up the energy to do so can be a struggle.

So, even though the message of Jadhwani’s adaptation comes through clearly in this latest version, it’s lacking the inspiring spark of vitality so key to the success of the 2024 incarnation. While all of the impressive technical elements return and the music and dance interludes are admirably well-executed, a crispness is missing from the exchanges between characters. For a story built around life-changing visits from four ghosts, there’s nothing particularly spirited about this staging.

The Guthrie’s expansive thrust theater – be it at its original space near Loring Park or in the reincarnated version beside the Mississippi – has always asked its actors to pay special attention to projection and articulation. Making things understandable to those at the back of the balcony is key when performing in a space this size.

Whenever any actor stepped into the temporary role of narrator, Dickens’ words rang out loud and clear, but a lot of other dialogue was lost – some of it in exchanges that were linchpins to driving the story forward – due to too many toos: The delivery was too quiet, too fast or too unvarying in dynamics or the attempts at authentic accents too thick.

Such could not be said of David Beach’s Scrooge, who does some of his best acting while not saying a word. As he witnesses events of his past and the party of the present that he invisibly visits, Beach masterfully summons up the character’s conflicted soul. And John Catron proves the ideal contrast in his life-loving nephew, Fred, while Tyler Michaels King ably captures the heartbreaking journey of Scrooge’s employee, Bob Cratchit.

The show’s technical elements are also unimpeachable, this year adding a clever surprise near the end of Scrooge’s encounter with the Ghost of Christmas Future. Matt Saunders’ set and projections are suitably transporting, and the costumes of Toni-Leslie James and Emily Tappan are invariably true to the setting – and must be easy to get in and out of, judging from some very quick changes.

It could be that this show will soon possess the energy needed to effectively sell this story of transformation, which feels particularly timely in its emphasis upon the prescient topics of greed and poverty – and of the importance of community in an increasingly isolating era.

‘A Christmas Carol’

When: Through Dec. 28

Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 Second St. S., Minneapolis

Tickets: $148-$19, available at 612-377-2224 or guthrietheater.org

Capsule: A lovely adaptation receives a fairly spiritless staging.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

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Sons of Norway member Lowell Johnson will be the featured speaker at the St Croix Valley Syttende Mai Society’s fall event.

Lowell Johnson

Johnson, past president and board member of the Synnove-Nordkap Sons of Norway Lodge in St. Paul, will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday at St. Paul Lutheran Church in  Stillwater.

The title of his talk is “New Life and New World,” which relates to the 200th anniversary of Norwegians immigrating to America, said Roger Bosmoe, the society’s president.

Johnson retired in 2021 after 36 years of public service with the Washington County Department of Public Health and the Environment. He is an avid woodcarver who specializes in Nordic chip carving.

The event is free and open to the public. Attendees are asked to bring a homemade Scandinavian treat to share, Bosmoe said.

For more information, email rbosmoe@yahoo.com.

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Como Park senior Aleia Lueck wrapped her high school swimming career in style on Saturday, winning the Class A 50-yard freestyle state title with a time of 23.52 seconds, six hundredths clear of Delano’s Kaia Georges.

Lueck blew away her seed time entering the meet with a strong prelim swim, and bettered that time Saturday.

She collected more hardware in the 100 freestyle, taking second with a time of 52.17 seconds, 17 hundredths behind event champion Izzy Westling of St. Cloud Apollo.

Biebl wins as individual, relay

Mounds Park Academy’s Alaina Biebl defended her title in the 100 backstroke with a dominant time of 56.73 seconds, good for an eight-tenths victory.

That was Biebl’s second title of the meet. The first came in the day’s first event, the 200 medley relay. Biebl swam the opening leg — the backstroke — for the Panthers, who topped Visitation by nearly a second for the victory.

Joining Biebl on the winning relay were Isabella Muyres, Julia Anderson and Josie MacDonald.

Biebl finished third in the 200 individual medley. Visitation’s Merry Miller won that title with a time of 2 minutes, 5.94 seconds, 22 hundredths faster than Westling.

Miller took second place in the 100 breaststroke, just four-hundredths off Sauk Rapids Rice’s Kate Walz’s winning time of 1 minute, 3.90 seconds.

Aarness wins diving title

Hastings junior Chloe Aarness build a solid lead in Thursday’s state diving prelims and sealed the deal in Saturday’s final.

Aarness recorded a score of 465.40, 18.6 points better than Westonka’s Bailey Monette to win the state diving crown.

Team

Monticello won the team title with 227 points. Visitation was the runnerup for the second straight year with 210 points, with defending-champion Orono placing third. Mounds Park Academy finished fifth.

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