LEWISTOWN The Havre girls cross country team continued its dominance Saturday at the Fergus Invitational, placing all seven runners in the top 20 to come away with an easy first place finish.
Six runners came away with personal best times, led by Alicia Rundquist with a time of 19:58 for second place.
"This meet was great for her," head coach Kim Ray said. "It is the first time she broke 20 minutes, which is a tremendous achievement for her to get."
Ray said the course is very similar to the difficulty of the one at state, which was good for her girls to experience before the state meet.
"This was a real motivational meet," Ray said. "It was a meet that they all needed to see that they have that kind of potential. We look really good for state."
Ray said with the season winding down, now is when the final times should begin to fall, which she saw happening early on in the race this weekend.
"Their first mile times were all under seven minutes," she said. "The times have never been that fast for that first mile. It was a key point for us and it made a difference in a lot of their times."
With such a strong finish and with all the girls running so close together, the Ponies cut their pack time to 1:38.
"I felt it was the first meet that they really tried to stay close together and tried to keep up with each other," Ray said. "It was the first meet that they really ran to what their full potential will be for state."
Nicole Widhalm of Belt finished first, seconds ahead of Rundquist, with a time of 19:53. Katie Siebrasse finished in fifth for Havre with a time of 20:10, followed by Maureen Porter in sixth with a 20:53. Nikki Dibblee came in 10th with a 21:07, Hailey Schnittgen finished 15th with a 21:36 and Shannon Newth came in 17th with a 21:49. Jenna Baltrusch rounded out the Havre team with an 18th place finish and a time of 22:05.
