Williams, Whitman in top 10 at Cut Bank

Derrick Williams took sixth and Justin Whitman took 10th at the Cut Bank cross country time trials last Friday.

Williams ran the course in 17:06, while Whitman clocked a 17:26.

Top runner for the girls was Jinise Osborne who took seventh with a time of 21:14.05.

The non-scoring meet was run in hot, dry, conditions with a stiff wind, coach Richard Menicke said.

"I was pleased for our first week," he said. "It was a pretty challenging course … a lot of our kids got dehydrated."

Sophomore Austin Dumay was the boys third fastest runner, with a time of 19:01.31 — good for 37th place. The remaining boys did not place in the top 40. Pascal Jessat, who was a key member of the team last year, recently rejoined the team. He started school later because he was in army boot camp. He likely won't be eligible to race until the Mountain Classic in Missoula, Menicke said.

The coach said the boys team had several run their first race ever, and they did pretty well.

"They ran solid," he said. "It was a good start."

Rounding out the girls field was Tessa Cowan, who took 20th with a time of 22:48; Cami Cassazza was 24th with a time of 22:54; Nicki Moser was 29th with a time of 23:17; Tori Price was 34th with a time of 23:17 and Alexas Young was 39th with a time of 24:17 .

"It's a pretty good girls team," Menicke said. "We've got a lot of depth."

The JV team is scheduled to travel to Eureka on Friday and the varsity squad will go to Flathead Invitational Saturday.