Blue Pony harriers run to a good start in Cut Bank

The Havre High cross country teams traveled to Cut Bank last Friday and got their first taste of competitive running at the annual Cut Bank Time Trials.

The time trials are just an individual competition and there are no team scores kept in the meet. However, both Havre teams got some quality performances as Austin Jones led the boys team with a 12th place finish, while Kadia Miller paced the Havre girls by finishing 14th

"It's a good chance for everyone to get a chance to see where they are at," HHS head coach Josh Holt said. "It also kind of affirms for us who our varsity runners are going to be."

The meet in Cut Bank also gave all the runners on both teams a chance to compete, which meant 17 runners for the boys team got to run, while nine girls also competed for HHS.

Jones, who finished 12th after posting a time of 18:31, finished just ahead of Jakob Keller, Havre's next best finisher, who was 21st with a time of 18:59. The Havre boys also had strong performances from Cameron Pleninger, who was 37th (19:16), as well as Barrett Kilgore (20:00), who was 49th. They were followed by Trevor Williams in 51st place (20:02), Quinn Reno, who was 52nd (20:03) and Noah Azure (20:14), who finished 58th. Dylan Young, who was 83rd (21:21) and Andrew VandenBos (93rd, 21:39) and also finished in the top 100 for HHS.

The other runners for the Havre boys Garrett Parsons, Austin Delarosa, Joshua Williams, Alec Azure, Sid Moffit, Torek Swenson and Riley Kilgore.

Miller was the top runner for the Havre girls and she wound up in 14th place after running a time of 22:10. The next best runner for the Pony girls was Kaylee Nystrom, who finished in 30th after running the course in 23:31. Tamera O'Leary was next to cross the finish line for Havre and she was 32nd with a time of 23:39. Amelia Miller also ran a solid race and finished 64th (25:50). The other finishers for Havre were Lilly Taly, who was 84th (27:28), Rhoda Peterson, who was 85th (27:30), Melanie Jones, who was 89th (27:55), Ryen Olsen, who finished 91st (28:14) and Madi Shennum, who was 101st with a time of 29:42.

Both Havre teams will take part in their first team competitions of the season this Saturday at the Malta Invitational.