Malta Cross Country Heading to State Meet In Kalispell

The Malta Cross Country team headed west on a crispy cool autumn morning on Friday the 13th to the annual Harlem Invitational Cross Country Meet, which took place out at the Harlem Golf Course, a flat 3.1 mile course.

As luck would have it, this meet would be a boon to runners as they tested their skills they have worked on all season. This is the last race many of the runners will participate in before heading into the post season and a trip to the state meet in Kalispell on October 21. The weather was almost perfect and the conditions would prove to be just what the runners liked as the gun went off and they set a fast pace.

The Harlem meet is fun to watch because a spectator can see the runners a couple times as they loop around the course twice. We were treated to some highly contested races, on both the girl's and the boy's side.

The girl's high school race followed the middle school races and a presentation honoring the Harlem senior runners. 51 runners lined up representing 15 different schools, listening for final instructions, and then prepared to take off at the sound of the gun to start the race. Tanae Baker of Glasgow set the pace as the race began and wound around the course and eventually finished in first place with a speedy time of 19:19. As the race progressed, the lead runners spread out quickly. Whitewater runner Shelbi LaBrie was one of the lead runners and she ran a nice strong race and settled for 4th place with a time of 20:45. Malta runner Megan Morser ran with a fairly tight group of runners for the first half. She said her hip was hurting from the beginning but she managed to push herself along and at the mile mark she was right on with what we had hoped she would be. Her goal had been to stick fairly close to Ava Hanley of Whitewater, who led the duo and eventually ran in ahead of Megan and finished 37th place and a time of 27:28 and Megan in 38th place with a time of 27:36. This wasn't one of her fastest times, but it was a faster finish than last year at this same meet. She fought the crud earlier in the week, missing some practices and she worked hard to get back into it and cruise around this course and accomplish her goal which she was happy about.

The boy's high school race started right after the girl's race finished and a very fast pace was set quickly by Wolf Point runner Peyton Summer who seemed to sail across the course effortlessly with no runners anywhere near him as if he was running a solo race, finishing with an impressive time of 15:52 for first place. Harlem's runner Branlin Foote came in second place nearly a minute and a half behind. The boy's race had 78 runners, and it never seemed that there was a spreading out of the runners, many running fairly close together throughout the whole race. Kael Young and Michael Mayer were among the runners who were in a pack. Sometimes the pack pushes you to move faster as you work off of each other and that was the case with these two. When they came around the mile mark area, both were right on with their times that we had them strive for. They were fairly close together at that point but Kael began to make a move and slowly pushed himself throughout the rest of the race and passed a few runners in the last half mile to, pushing it hard into the finish area and placed 33rd and in the top half of the boys with a time of 21:34, which is his second fastest time this season. Michael ran a great race, looking much better, pushing it in very fast in the finish area and he too ran his second fastest race this season and a much faster finish than in Malta. He finished 60th place and a time of 23:46.

Coach Lisa and I were very happy with the results of the race. This course seems to be more challenging than you think, with many of the top runners posting times that were slightly slower than last year. Maybe the slight change in the way it was laid out or the softer conditions due to rains of previous days contributed to that, but nonetheless, all the runners ran the same distance and worked very hard. Kudos to these cross country runners who work very hard training and racing during this ten week sport season. We look forward to our last meet, the state meet in Kalispell at Rebecca Farms on Saturday October 21.