Havre High harriers ready to run in Malta

After getting their taste of competition a week ago at the Cut Bank time trials, the Havre High cross country teams are ready to compete for real this week in their first team competition of the season at the Malta Invitational.

Last week at Cut Bank the Ponies determined their seven varsity runners for both the boys and girls teams. Yet, even with their varsity runners determined, the Ponies will still be without a few key runners Saturday, when they take on a number of Class B and Class C schools in Malta.

The meet is going to be held at the Malta Golf Course, which will provide some unique challenges, but it will be nothing new for the Ponies.

“We are used to running on golf courses, we do that a lot,” HHS head coach Darci Heninger said. “A lot of golf courses have hills, and we always work really hard on those in practice, so I think we will do well with our endurance. I think everyone will run better than they did last week."

The Pony girls will be without some of their top runners this week as both Morgan and Tori Mazurkiewicz will not be present. Rachel Majeres will also not be competing at the meet, leaving Rachel David as the top runner.

David is coming off a strong performance last week in Cut Bank when she finished No. 13 overall against competition that included Class AA schools, as well as schools from Class A and Class B.

“Rachel ran a really good race last week in Cut Bank and has been working really hard in practice,” Heninger said. “So I am expecting to her to do really well again this week. I think the girl’s team will do well but it will be a little tougher because we are missing a few of our runners.”

The rest of the runners that will run varsity for the Pony girls this week are Maya Reed, Marca Herron, Rainey Stoner, Lainee Van Voast, Megan Alexander and Meggie Zook.

On the boys side of things, the Ponies will have a complete roster or at least their top seven runners from a week ago. At some point, Brandon Robertson will likely be joining the varsity squad but this week he will run junior varsity to get his feet wet.

The Pony boys still have a number of runners that should do well highlighted by Jaime Lieberg, who was Havre’s top boy runner in Cut Bank, finishing No. 46 overall. Brock Ross will be the No. 2 runner for the HHS boys after coming in at No. 49 overall and next up in the lineup will be Sundance Lodge.

The rest of the varsity squad for the Havre boys this week will be, Cameron Knapton, Austin Jones, Ryan Stewart and Dylan Stewart.

“I think that all the boys are going to run really well this week,” Heninger said. “They are all so competitive and really close together that they always run hard because they all want those varsity spots really bad. There will be some tough competition like Glasgow, they have some good runners in both boys and girls, but I think our boys will do very well."

A big focus at this time of the year is not necessarily winning but improving each and every week. Not only is coach Heninger looking for a better pace from her runners this week, but she is also expecting to see better times across the board.

“The first race is always tough because the kids are nervous and excited and that leads to them going out too fast and when you do that it’s hard to keep up,” Heninger said. “But I think our pace should be a lot better this week. Last year, I think a lot of our boys trimmed almost a minute off of their times, so I am expecting everyone to run faster than they did last week.”

The Malta Invitational will get underway on Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Malta Golf Course.