By Tiffany L. Rehbein
The Havre High School cross country team, who is coming off a first place finish last week at Glasgow, will face one of its toughest competitions this season when it travels to Missoula to run in the Mountain West Classic.
The Classic, one of the largest meets of the season, will host numerous teams from throughout Montana, including Havre and KG.
Last week, junior Jennie Peterson won the Glasgow Invitational finishing in a career-high time of 19:16. Peterson has taken firsts in the the last two meets.
Senior Jen Dibblee finished second at Glasgow with a career-best 20:56.
Freshman Jenna Baltrusch finished third in 21:00, which was also a career best.
The big thing is that they have some momentum, said first-year head coach Kim Ray. They won that meet last week and hopefully that will pull over into this one.
Also traveling on the varsity squad will be junior Nikki Grant, junior Jillian Brough, freshman Alicia Rundquist and sophomore Maureen Porter.
Porter, who has been out with an injury, has not competed for the Blue Ponies since the Cut Bank Time Trials three weeks ago.
The two freshmen, Baltrusch and Rundquist, qualified for the team by clocking in some quick times for Havre.
I hope that the whole team goes in and they compete to their potential, Ray said. It will be extremely competitive and they should be really up for this because the competition there is going to push them.
Havre will have the opportunity to see some Western A schools that they dont normally see in competition.
The Blue Ponies also have a slight advantage in that they have competed at the Mountain West Classic in the past and are familiar with the course.
While the varsity is at Missoula, the junior varsity and junior high will compete, behind assistant coach Christin Smith, at Malta.
Ray looks for both teams to run some fast times on the flat Malta course.
