Hawks enjoy the Tripp

It's about time that the Thompson Falls Blue Hawks got with it with their track and field teams.

Hitting the track and field en masse for only the second time this season, the Hawks and Lady Hawks competed in the Dave Tripp Memorial in Polson last Friday and left Trenna Ferris as one happy coach after all was said and done.

"The kids did very well," Ferris said. "The boys team placed fifth overall with 70 points and the girls took fourth with 72. We had a lot of strong performances from a lot of athletes in Polson."

The Hawk boys may have moved up in the standings due to a scoring error in the final results. "Justin Morgan got fifth and Cooper Cable second in the 3200 meters," Ferris said. "This should have given us 10 more points and possibly moved us up to fourth in final team scoring."

Upon review of the scoring in the girls meet, the Lady Hawks actually moved up from their original position of fifth and into fourth place as well.

In addition to the Tripp meet, the Hawks also hosted their annual Thompson Falls Invitational at Previs Field Tuesday, although results of that meet will not be published until next week due to time constraints.

In Polson, Nick Viera scored the only individual event win for the Hawk boys by soaring 19 feet, 8 inches in the long jump.

Cody Burk won second place in the discus and fourth in the shot put, Ben Beauchman took second in the 800 meters, Cameron Lee was second in the 400,Trey Fisher speared third place in the javelin and sixth in the shot put, Cable added a fifth place in the 1600 to the second he won in the 3200 and Morgan registered his fifth place points in the 3200.

The Hawk boys' long relay finished second in the 1600 meter event, and the 400 meter quartet placed sixth in that race.

Josey Neesvig and Jody Detlaff registered the Lady Hawks' only event wins in Polson. Neesvig claimed the 3200 meters in a time of 13:29.64 in addition to placing fourth in the 1600 in 6:13.1, and Detlaff cleared 4-10 to win the high jump, in addition to placing fifth in the discus.

"Josey ran very mentally tough in the 3200," running coach Sarah Naegeli said adding that Neesvig held off a surge from a Darby runner down the stretch with a nice finishing kick of her own. Detlaff's winning high jump mark was only one inch away from automatically qualifying her for the State B meet, and she will likely hit that magical 4-11 height in a jump in the coming weeks.

Maya Stiles placed third in the pole vault with a best mark of 8-0, and sixth in the 200 meters in 29.93 seconds, Sierra Hanks enjoyed a fine day claiming third place points in the 400 meters and high jump and fourth in the 800, Kacey VanZanten took sixth in the 300 meter hurdles, Megan Baxter sixth in the 400 and Gabriella Pallister tied for sixth in the pole vault.

The Lady Hawk 1600 meter relay squad finished sixth in that race to complete team scoring.