Girls cross country nearly perfect at delayed Polson meet

The Columbia Falls girls cross country team ran an almost perfect race in Polson Saturday, with a team score of 16 points. A perfect score is 15 points. That came after a significant delay. The race was scheduled to begin in the morning, but didn’t happen until later in the afternoon, as race officials waited for the smoke to clear.

Senior Lara Erickson won the race with a time of 20 minutes, 20 seconds, followed by Hannah Sempf (21:18), Ally Sempf (21:33) and Emma Upton (22:11). Alyssa Blankenship was sixth (22:31) and Siri Erickson was seventh (22:31).

The boys won the meet as well, though not the race.

James Role was the top finisher for the Wildcats, taking third with a 17:48. Brant Heiner of Ronan won the race with a 17:07.

James Peterson was fifth for the Cats (18:05), Seth Umbriaco was eighth (18:12), Bailey Sjostrom 11th, (19:05), Quinn Clark 16th (19:48), Logan Peterson, 17th (19:48).

The teams were supposed to race last Tuesday in St. Ignatius, but that meet was canceled because of smoke from wildfires in Washington, Oregon and California.

“It was a small meet, but we were just happy to have a chance to compete given the goofy cancellations and delays,” coach Jim Peacock said of the Polson race. “Hamilton and Frenchtown were supposed to be there, but they opted to stay home after the delay was announced. Whitefish only brought their boys team. Their girls team took the day off from racing, so the girls’ field was pretty thin. We had hoped to see the Hamilton team. They have a couple of the top individual boys in Class A, and they have the defending individual

state champion girl, Brynnli Poulsen. It would have been fun to have them at the competition, but the teams that were there brought plenty of talent too.”

Next up for the Cats is a race Thursday in Thompson Falls and then a meet in Libby Saturday.