Track season off to a running start
Local athletes compete in Bozeman
BOZEMAN—Madison County athletes joined teams from Broadwater, Manhattan, Butte, West Yellowstone and White Sulphur Springs for the kickoff to the 2019 track and field season. Bozeman High School hosted the TFMC Invitational on Saturday, April 6, and hundreds of athletes took advantage of clear skies to log early-season marks.
Local athletes claimed the top spot in nine events: five on the girls’ side and four for the boys.
Whitehall’s Katie Whitehurst won the girls’ 400-meter dash in a personal best of 1:04.33, more than two seconds ahead of the rest of the field. Ennis’s Maida Knapton claimed a similar impressive victory in the 800-meter run, setting a season-best mark of 2:46 and topping second place by more than seven seconds.
In the field events, Twin Bridges freshman Hailey Pack won the discus in a personal best of 30 feet and one-half inch, while her teammate Blu Keim took the third spot with a 27 foot, 7 inch throw. Pack would also take second in the discus throw, with a toss of 85 feet, 8 inches.
Ennis’s Jourdain Klein claimed two victories on Saturday in the high jump and the triple jump. Klein leapt 10 inches higher than the second-place high jumper with a mark of 5 feet, 4 inches, and had over two and a half feet on second place in the triple jump with a season-best mark of 35 feet, 2 inches. Klein finished second at last year’s state meet in each of those events.
For the boys, Harrison’s Vern Homner took the discus title with a personal best throw of 130 feet 1 inch, putting nearly four feet on the runner-up. Homner was also second in the high jump with a leap of 5 feet 8 inches, just two inches behind Whitehall’s Tegan Robbins.
Sheridan boys claimed the top two spots in pole vault, with Moxon Lee and Hartson VanHouten both notching personal bests. Lee leapt 11 feet, whiel VanHouten jumped 9 feet 3 inches.
Twin Bridges’ Tate Smith also had a personal best in the triple jump, enough to claim a seven-inch victory. His leap of 38 feet 5 inches placed him ahead of Absarokee’s Wyatt Hayes.