Pavle Kalaba closed out his MSU Cycling career last week with a 12th-place finish in the men’s criterium at the Collegiate Nationals in Wisconsin. But the senior and science major didn’t want to focus on his final race time but on the great joy he experienced the past few years, with all the highs and lows of competition, with some very special people at MSU Texas over the past few years.

Kalaba also took 16th in the road race, while his brother, Dušan Kalaba, finished eighth for the best MSU Cycling finish at the 2025 nationals. Brody Burnham and Nicolas Martinelli joined the Kalabas in the team trial, where MSU finished ninth.

“It wasn’t the fairytale ending we dreamed of – no trophy, no gold,” Pavle Kalaba said in a post on Instagram. “But what we did have was grit and a relentless drive that pushed us to the very end. And in the end, that means more than any medal ever could.”

Pavle thanked those around him who made MSU Cycling special, especially his teammates. “For the miles we rode side by side, for the early mornings and late-night talks, for every cheer and every push when I needed it most. You made this journey beautiful and memorable,” he said.

“You could see guys sacrifice to help the team; we wanted to win the overall race, and really were only 10 seconds short,” MSU Cycling director Pablo Cruz Trochez said. “We didn’t have things play out as we wanted. The road race went well, and in the criterium, we crashed in the last three minutes of an 80-minute race. We had given ourselves a chance.”

In the women’s divisions, MSU Cycling showed the nation it has a program on the rise as Gabrielle Wrightsman, Emma Kasza-James, and Molly Hayes all fared well in both the road race and the criterium. Wrightsman finished 18th in the criterium and 22nd in the road race,  Kasza-James was 20th in the criterium and 39th in the road race, and Hayes was 38th in the criterium and 41st in the road race. They also had to battle back from an early crash.