Hawks, Horsemen tested at Flathead Invitational

The Thompson Falls and Plains cross country teams competed in one of the bigger races of the season last Friday, running at Rebecca Farms for the Flathead Invitational. The runners competed against teams from class AA, A, B and C at the meet.

John Owen Jermyn led the Plains runners in the freshman race, finishing 23rd with a time of 20:02. Horseman Kalem Ercanbrack was close behind in 20:49, and Asher Seymour finished the course in 24:48.

"It was highly competitive, and we were focused on results compared to other Class B teams," she said. The course had lots of grass and a couple of gradual hills, Naegeli noted, with a nice downhill sprint to the finish line.

In the boys varsity competition, senior Cael Thilmony finished 10th among class B runners, crossing the finish line in 18 minutes, 23 seconds. "Cael chose to run the varsity race to challenge himself with the AA schools," Naegeli mentioned. "He's been training hard in the heat and it helped him in this race."

In the jv race, Blake Shusterman finished in 22:21, Sean Nowlan in 23:50 and Jakob Molina in 31:40. Tuff Ryder (23:17) competed in the boys freshman race.

The Blue Hawk girls competed in the jv race, with Aubrey Baxter (23:58) coming in 25th place among the 183 runners. Peighton Kinney (25:01) and Katherine Schmitz (29:19) also competed for Thompson Falls. In the girls' freshman race, Addie Traver led her teammates with a 30:15 finish and was third among class B freshman girls. Kylee Huff was close behind in fourth among Class B girls in 31:24 and Evalyn Edwards finished in 32:08 in her first race of the season.

Coach Naegeli said the team learned how to start in a larger race at Rebecca Farms and were able to familiarize themselves with the course that will also host the state meet. She noted that Traver and Nowlan each improved their times by over a minute, and Schmitz by almost two minutes.

Next up for Thompson Falls and Plains is the Canal Bank Run in Ronan.