Harriers compete at Mountain West Classic in Missoula
Hungry Horse News
The Columbia Falls cross country teams competed at the Mountain West Classic in Missoula Saturday, one of the biggest races in the state.
“This is the same course we’ll be running a month from now for the State meet. Our main focus was to get a feel for the course and figure out our individual strengths and weaknesses on that layout. To that end, we accomplished what we needed to at this meet. We also got to see most of the top competition in Class A within a huge field of schools running, so we also got a peek at how those kids race too,” coach Jim Peacock said.
The girls were 13th overall. Of the Class A teams, they were second to a dominant performance by the defending state champions, Hardin.
“This race had 403 finishers, and there were 52 complete teams scored. Mya Badger, who was 67th place in 20:48, led a pretty tight pack of Columbia Falls girls. Ashley Andrews finished 20 seconds back in 83rd, and she was followed by Marissa Schaeffer 99th in 21:18. Chloe Savoy was 119th in 21:30, and Cora Hannan rounded out the scoring five in 22:19 and 166th place,” Peacock noted.
The boys had a bit tougher time and got stuck in the pack, Peacock noted.
“We hoped to be more competitive with the top teams in Class A on Saturday, but it will be more important that we’re competitive with those teams in four weeks when we see them again on this course at State,” he said. “Oliver Kress, 154th in 18:01, led the team again this week with Griffin LaRoque and Hoot Peterson both finishing less than seven seconds back in 163rd and 166th places. The team finished 29th, and that put us 5th out of Class A schools.”
“As a team, we’re continuing to focus on the State meet at the end of October. Our training plans shift a little at this part of the season, and each meet gives us a little more knowledge and better benchmarks to track those end of season goals. We’ll take what we learned from Mountain West and use it to keep improving,” he added.
The next meet is Thursday in Hamilton at the grounds of the Daly Mansion. Peacock expects about 17 teams will run the race.