Havre, area thinclads comepete in Great Falls

The Havre High track teams continued their busy schedules this past weekend, competing in Great Falls at the Fairfield-Belt meet held inside Memorial Stadium Saturday.

And with it being the Blue Ponies' third meet in just eight days, and with many Havre athletes slated to take part in the Glasgow Top 10 Tuesday, some individuals were limited in events and as a result, the Havre girls finished fourth with 54 points, behind Seeley-Swan, which won the meet with 79 points. Fort Benton was second with 68 and Glasgow finished third with 60.

Seeley-Swan also tied for the top spot in the boys competition, finishing with 75 points, the same total as Fort Benton. Glasgow also finished third in the boys meet with 66 points, 12 ahead of Fairfield, the host team, which was fourth with 54. Havre finished 18th in the meet with 4 points.

“We did a lot of really good things,” HHS head coach John Ita said. “Both of our JV teams did really well and I thought both of our teams had really good performances. We had a lot of PRs and I was really, really happy with all of our kids. On the girls team, we just have some nagging injuries that we have to get through. We just have to try and nurse our way through some things. That being said, what we had was a lot of kids that did one event.”

While a lack of numbers in some events hurt the Pony girls in overall team scores, HHS still had a number of runners place, including Jessa Chvilicek, who was second in the 200-meter dash (27.47) and sixth in the 100 (14.07). Loy Waid had a strong showing in the 400 again with a third place (1:01), and Katie Wirtzberger was fourth in the 100 (13.8). Kadia Miller placed in the 3,200, getting fifth after running 13:13, a personal best for her and, best of all, the Ponies finished first in the 400 relay as the team of Grace Loftus, Waid, Wirtzberger and Chvilicek posted a time of 51.99. The Ponies didn’t have a team run the 1,600 relay.

“We had Katie Wirtzberter in the short relay and that was one of the only events she was able to do,” Ita said. “We had Sadie Filius who was able to do one event for us. Even with that all being said, in the events the kids did, they did really well. We just had some tired legs and we need some kids to heal up, but I thought we performed really well.”

In addition to the running events, the Havre girls also put up points in the jumps and Loy Waid was particularly impressive, qualifying for the Top 10 meet in the triple jump in her first time competing in the event this season. She finished third with a jump of 32-05. Sarah Faber also had a strong day, finishing second in the high jump (4-10) and sixth in the long jump (15-00), which was three spots behind Loftus, who finished third (16-01).

On the boys side of things, the Ponies had plenty of good times posted according to Ita, who said his athletes continue to improve, but HHS scored points in just the 400 and the 400 relay. Andrew Boucher finished fifth in the 400 (52.91) and also helped the 400 relay team take fifth with a time of 47.06 as he teamed up with Brandon Shaw, Brock Nystrom and Nolan Lotton.

While the Havre boys didn’t contend in the team race, Fort Benton did and got first-place finishes from Garrett Diekhans in the 100 hurdles and Damon Bird in the 800 on the way to a tie for first. The Longhorns also finished runner-up in both relays. Clint Darlington of Big Sandy also reached the top of the podium in the triple jump (40-09).

A number of local athletes also took home first place in the girls meet Saturday, led by Tatum Hull of Chester-Joplin-Inverness. The freshman won triple jump (34-01) and also the long jump (16-09). On top of that, she also took home a third individual title in the 110 hurdles after running a 16.81. Allie Wallace of Fort Benton won the 300 hurdles (48.98) after finishing second to Hull in the 100 hurdles. Megan Molyneaux of Chinook added another first-place finish in the 200 to her resume, as she won that race with a time of 26.89. She was also second in the 100 (13.60).

Havre and a number of other teams will be back in action Tuesday in Glasgow for the annual Top 10 meet.