At Cretin-Derham Hall, students have important opportunities to grow, learn and thrive both in the classroom and 'beyond the books!' In fact, 98% of students participate in one or more sports or activities. 

Beyond the Books is our brag book on all of your favorite co-curriculars at CDH: athletics, activities, JROTC, Campus Ministry, and the Arts. This can also be a place for occasional school-wide athletic department updates and current news on some of our activities.

ATHLETICS | ACTIVITIES | BAND | CHOIR | JROTC | THEATER

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Athletics

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Boys Basketball

By Tony Yazbeck, Assistant Coach

The Boys Basketball team is having an outstanding season, currently sitting at 16–4 overall and a perfect 12–0 in conference play. Jojo Mitchell ’26 leads the Raiders in scoring with an impressive 22 points per game, while Ty Schlagel ’27 is close behind, averaging 20 points per game.

The Raiders have challenged themselves with a demanding non-conference schedule to prepare for the postseason. Three of their four losses came against highly ranked opponents and were decided by a combined four points—including one triple-overtime game and one overtime loss.

The Raiders are currently ranked #4 in the state and will travel to East Ridge on Friday, February 13, where a win would clinch their third consecutive conference championship.

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Girls Basketball

By Tara Gunderson, Head Coach

The CDH Girls Basketball team continues to battle through the season and currently sits in 2nd place of the Suburban East Conference. Our overall record is 14-7 and we are 11-2 in conference play. We are down to the final stretch of the regular season with just 5 games remaining before section play. The past 2 weeks the Raiders have had strong conference wins over Forest Lake, Woodbury and Stillwater. We also played top ranked Benilde-St.Margaret in that stretch but came up short losing 65-56. We hope to keep improving with section play scheduled to start on Feb. 25. This group of girls are driven to finish strong with a mission to make another State Tournament run!

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Boys Hockey

By Matt Funk, Head Coach

The boys’ hockey team is getting close to the finish line and is currently 16-6 and rated #9 in state. We had a great January going 7-1 with a close loss to East Ridge. Goaltender Ernie Drury ’27 is one of the state leaders in wins with 11 wins and .920 save % and 1.75 GAA. Junior Marcus Matyas ’27 leads the team with 26 points, followed closely by Max Thompson ’27, Jonny Bloedow ’28, and Torin Tompkins ’27. We are currently in first place in the conference with 3 games to play. The boys close the season with Stillwater on 2/14 with the conference title on the line. Sections will begin on 2/17 with seeding happening on 2/15.

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Girls Hockey

By Tony Scheid, Head Coach

The Raiders Girls hockey team opened up Section 3AA with an impressive 4-1 win over Eastview High School on Wednesday night at Charles M. Schulz - Highland Arena. The 4th Seeded Raiders came out strong from the drop of the puck. They tested the Lighting goalie with 21 shots on goal in the first period, while limiting Eastview to just 5 first period shots. 

After no scoring in the first period, the Raiders exploded with 3 second period goals. Channing Haycraft ’27, the Raiders Captain and leading scorer got the scoring started early in the second period on a power-play. Haycraft cut off the boards to the middle off the ice and scored with a quick release on a wrist shot. Eastview tied it up 1-1 just 5 minutes later. Then Haycraft attacked the net again, deking the Lightning goalie out of position, allowing Lilly Selander ’28 to crash in and score on the rebound making it 2-1. Captain Emma Kennefick ’26 completed the second period scoring with a heavy wrist shot that beat the Lightning goalie high to her glove side.

After a hard fought 3rd period, Haycraft scored her second goal of the game on an empty net to the seal the Section 3AA Quarterfinal victory. Senior standout goalie Grace Kemp ’26 came up with many excellent saves to backstop the Raiders all night. Kemp continues to be at the top of state statistically and will be up for the Jori Jones Award (Formerly the Minnesota High School Goalie of the Year Award).

The 4th Seeded Raiders season ended in a hard fought 3-2 loss to top seed Apple Valley.
 

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Boys Swim and Dive

By Mitchell Reynolds, Head Coach

The CDH Boys Swim and Dive Team raced in many meets in January. Highlights included a 4th place finish with many PRs at the 2A True Team Section Championship and dual meet wins against Forest Lake (1/8) and White Bear Lake (1/27). We celebrated our Seniors Owen Sargent '26 and Carl Steinhoff '26 - thank you class of 2026! 

Please cheer on the Raiders in our postseason meets! 6 athletes from our team will compete in the JV Conference Championships at Oltman Middle School on Saturday, 2/14 at noon. Our remaining 15 swimmers will race on Thursday, 2/19 and Saturday, 2/21 at the Section 2A Preliminaries and Finals at St. Catherine University! This meet will determine qualifiers for the MSHSL A State Championships at the University of Minnesota on 2/27 and 2/28. 

It has been a grind of a season but we are excited to rest, shave and "suit up" for our final swims of the season. Thank you for your support! 
 

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Activities

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Clay Target Team

By Jason Naber, Coach

The Clay Target Team is getting ready for the spring Trap and Skeet season!  At our annual meeting on January 22 we handed out CDH Letters and celebrated awards won by the team and individuals during the fall season.  Congratulations to the team for taking second place in conference for both Trap and Skeet. Olivia Kline '26 continued her successful medal run earning 2nd place in Conference for Trap and 1st place in Conference for Skeet.  A team photo is planned for March 4, 2:45 pm in the Lentsch Forum.   Registration is now open for the USA High School Clay Target League so anyone planning to participate this spring must complete registration before noon on March 23.  The team will officially start the spring season on March 25 and will extend into June for the State and possibly National Championships.  Anyone interested in joining the Clay Target Team should contact Mr. Anderson right away. 

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Science Olympiad

By Jessie Botello, Moderator

The Science Olympiad is competing at Regionals at Mounds View High School on Saturday February 6.  We have 4 students competing in 2 events!  We also have plans to go to the state event on February 28!

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Speech Team

By Nick Niewinski ’06, Head Coach

This year we have students from multiple grade levels who are actively interested in performing at Speech tournaments. We're currently finalizing the dates of the tournaments that they'll be performing at. I've also received great support from other staff members at the school relating to the Speech Team meetings. One of the English Teachers from the Values teams, Jack Moody, recently attended one of our meetings and he shared his experiences from when he participated in Speech tournaments back in high school and provided advice to the students for their upcoming performances.
 

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Sustainability Club

By Jessie Botello, Moderator

Sustainability Club is working on ideas for earth day coming up in April.  We want to get more school participation.
 

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Band

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By Teddy Williams, Band Director

The band is fresh off a strong performance at the SEC Music Festival. All band students spent a day performing and hearing other schools from our conference perform. We also had seven students representing CDH in the SEC Honors Band! A huge congrats to all the hard work to these musicians. 

The Jazz Band had the pleasure of performing at the Empty Bowls fundraiser event. They got to perform alongside the Nativity Middle School Jazz Band, even combining for the final tune! 

Both these groups and the String Ensemble are preparing for their midwinter concert on Tuesday, March 3. This concert will be combined with CDH Choir and Purple Reign A cappella. We hope to see you there for a wonderful evening of music!

Upcoming Events:

• CDH Band & Choir Midwinter Concert: Tuesday, March 3, 7pm, Horyza (Auxiliary) Gymnasium

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Choir

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By Delilah Schuster, Choir Director

Purple Reign is hard at work preparing for our Midwinter Concert! We have split into groups for this one: the treble singers are working on an uplifting ballad in the style of the Wailin' Jennys, while the tenors and basses are putting their energy toward a soulful spiritual song of hope. Catch us at the Band & Choir Midwinter Concert on March 3rd at 7pm in the Len Horyza Gymnasium.

Upcoming Events:

• CDH Band & Choir Midwinter Concert: Tuesday, March 3, 7pm, Horyza (Auxiliary) Gymnasium
• Solo/Ensemble Competition (optional): Thursday, March 26, Hill-Murray (times TBD)
• Performing Arts Trip to New York City: April 8-11

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JROTC

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By SGM David Berrisford '81, COL Scrocca, and SFC Thingvold

On February 6, the Cretin-Derham Hall Raider Brigade hosted the 34th Annual Upper Midwest JROTC Challenge (UMJC). Due to the ongoing ICE Operations in Minnesota, turnout from other schools across the region was about half of what it normally is. Still though, nearly 200 Army, Air Force and Marine Corps cadets from seven local and regional JROTC programs attended the competition and approximately 30 of our own cadets competed, while more than 100 more cadets ran the competition and its various events. The cadets competed in Regulation Drill (precision marching), Color Guard, Knowledge Bowl, Physical Fitness, Archery,
Air Rifle, and Tug-O-War. Make no mistake about it - this was a cadet/student run event with the instructors only maintaining oversight.   

The CDH Raider Brigade once again represented itself with distinction, finishing 1st Overall and the following teams took home honors: The Air Rifle, Archery, Physical Fitness, Knowledge Bowl and Tug-O-War teams all placed first. The Regulation Drill team placed 2nd and the Color Guard team placed 4th. The Knowledge Bowl team placed 2nd and the Air Rifle and Physical Fitness teams placed third.

Congratulations to you Cadets of the Month for January – Madeleine Hamiel ’29, Anna Mike ’29, Jameson Downs ’28, and Gabriel Tessier ’28. Nominated by the cadet leadership, these cadets have gone above and beyond during Leadership Labs and stood out among their peers as leaders in January.

In January, the JROTC Archery Team competed in Part 1 of the 2026 JROTC Archery Virtual Cup Series. The results are in, and the Raider Brigade did awesome! The Varsity A Team placed 15th and the Varsity B Team 39th out of 59 teams nationally. That is outstanding! Cadet Ryan O’Connell ’27 was our top archer shooting a 275 out of a perfect which placed him 34th out of 459 JROTC archers across the nation. Cadet Darby Peterson ‘26 shot a 270, and ranked 67th; Maya Remer ’27 - 264, 96th; Cova Bernard ’28 – 260, 126th; Cora Moore ’27 – 257, 147th and Lucy Keating ’26 – 249, 191st. Congrats to all. Part 2 of the competition will take place in March.

The annual Raider Brigade Military Ball will be held on February 13 at TST Catering in St. Paul. We encourage our cadets to attend this fun event. It gives the cadets an opportunity to dress up in a formal version of their uniform and their dates and young women in the program can wear a formal civilian suit or gown. Students arrive at 5 pm, have their pictures taken, eat a wonderful meal, and then dance the night away. The event ends at 10 pm. All cadre attend as chaperones as well.

Finally, the JROTC Department will be collecting names of interested cadets for our final event of the school year – the JROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge at Camp Wilderness in Park Rapids from May 26-30. In this CDH-led event, 12 Raider Brigade cadets will join approximately 50 other Army JROTC cadets from other Army JROTC programs throughout the region to participate in a host of individual leadership and team-building activities to include: rock wall climbing, rappelling, a high ropes course, archery, kayaking, and orienteering.

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Theater

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By Cullen Wiley '16, Theater Director

CDH Theater presents The Outsiders! This classic coming of age story full of hope, struggle, and the importance of community is sure to captivate audiences. Shows run February 20-March 1.

Get Tickets