Track has strong first showing

Bigfork's track and field teams emerged from their first meet of the season with top placings in several events and also did well in the team scoring Saturday at the Columbia Falls Invitational.

"I thought that overall, for our first meet, we did really, really well," said Sue Loeffler, Bigfork High School head track and field coach. "Now we know where we're at and what we need to work on. We got to see some kids compete that hadn't competed before."

The girls team placed second with 71 points among the 13 teams present. Polson took the top honors with 134 points, Columbia Falls was third with 70 and Cut Bank was fourth with 56.5.

"What's pretty impressive about that is that we're down to just 11 girls," Loeffler said. "The thing is that with bigger meets if you have girls that can lace high then you can still do well even if you don't have a lot of girls on the team. It's the smaller meets where you really need the numbers."

Placing high a this meet meant beating out more competition, though. Also, even though Bigfork is a Class B school, its track and field athletes still compete against participants from all school levels at regular season track meets. It isn't until the district meet that the times and distances are compared solely to Class B competitors.

Senior Kayla Carlson had a shining performance for her first meet of the season. She picked up first place in both distance events she entered. Carlson won the 800-meter in 2:25.3 and the 1600-meter in 5:21.3 both by sizable margins. Her closest competition in the 800 was Bailey Malecha from Eureka who had a time of 2:30.3 and Whitefish's Jessica Sagen placed second in the 1600 with 5:59.9.

"She did real well and she had good times," Loeffler said. "She isn't being pushed so she's pushing herself."

Mallery Knoll pulled in her share of points in the sprints. She won the 300-meter hurdles in 47.3 and beat her rival out of Polson, Breanne Kelley by 0.1.

"That's a really good time for this early in the season," Loeffler said.

Knoll took second in the 100-meter with a time of 12.9 as she trailed the first place runner from Cut Bank's by 0.5 seconds and beat out Whitefish's Amanda Foley by 0.1.

Bigfork's younger talent had a strong showing on the track as well. Sophomore Amber McDaniel placed sixth in the 400-meter in 1:12.7, which was a little more than 11 seconds slower than the Malecha who won the race.

Freshman Chelsea Olson was the sixth-place finisher in the 1600-meter with a time of 6:30.4.

"For a freshman on her first time out, she did really well," Loeffler said. "She has taken off with what she did in cross country and carried it over to track."

The Valkyries relay teams also did well as they both placed in the top three. The 1600-meter relay team comprised of Knoll, Quinci Paine, Jenna Egdorf and Carlson earned second place as the girls finished the race in 4:21.0, which was two seconds slower than Polson's team.

Bigfork's 400-meter relay team of Kenna Hauns, Caitlin Charlebois, Paine and Knoll took third with 53.9. Polson won the short relay as well with 51.9 and Whitefish was second with 53.7. Columbia Falls finished just after Bigfork in both the short and long relays with times of 54.2 and 4:29, respectively.

Paine and Charlebois collected points for Bigfork in the field events. Charlebois placed third in the pole vault with a 7-6 and Paine earned sixth with a 6-6.

Nicole Davey of Polson had the best vault with 9-0 and Jessie Gist of Columbia Falls was second with 8-0. Paine earned the third spot in the javelin with 93-1 and Charlebois was fourth with 91-7. Cut Bank's Brady Gray placed first with 106-3 and Olivia Nagler of Whitefish was second with 105-4.

The Bigfork boys team earned 35 points and finished in a tie with Whitefish for fifth place among the 13 teams. Columbia Falls held the top spot with 124, Polson was second with 84.5, Plains was third with 68 and Eureka had 45.

Senior Keenan Evans had a good showing as he earned personal bests in his sprints. He tied a Columbia Falls runner Jones for second in the 100-meter in 11.3 and two other Wildcats were within a 0.1 seconds of them.

Polson's Jason Bowman was first with 11.2. Evans completed the 200-meter in 23.3 to earn second place. Bowman won that race as well in 23.0. Columbia Falls' Taylor Martinson finished third in 23.4 and Eureka's top sprinter Chad Price was fourth in 23.5. Bigfork's Travis Knoll placed sixth in 24.1.

"I was real impressed with all of our boy sprinters — with their maturity and their ability," Loeffler said. "They are already leaps and bounds ahead of where they were last year. It was pretty fun to watch."

The Bigfork boys relay teams placed well in the 400-meter relay. The varsity team, which included Derek Minemyer, Evans, Ian Lorang and Knoll, finished second in 45.5 behind Columbia Falls' team which had a time of 45.4.

"For the short time we practiced hand-offs they got a really good time," Loeffler said.

Polson was third in the 400-relay with 45.8, Whitefish's team ran it in 45.9 and Eureka was finished in 46.1 to earn fifth place.

Bigfork's junior varsity team earned sixth place in the relay with 47.5. Kenji Sagami ran the first leg, Kyle Hauns had the second, Austin Jordt was the third man and Carter Sorensen was the anchor.

Garrett Hibbs was the only Bigfork boy to place in the field events. He took second in the discus with his throw of 131-8. Trent Thompson from Plains had the furthest throw with 151-9.

Loeffler said that she was happy with how her athletes performed in their first meet and now she is hoping to have them expand their talents.

"We have such good numbers with the boys that we need to get them entered in more events," Loeffler said. "We have quite a few events that we don't have anyone entered in."

The Bigfork track and field team was supposed to travel to Kalispell on Tuesday, April 13, but that meet was canceled due to winter weather.

Saturday, April 17, Bigfork will host its meet starting at 10 a.m. Bigfork Middle School's track team will host its annual meet tomorrow, April 16 at 4 p.m.