Pony thinclads off to a good start

The Havre High track and field program took full advantage of its first weekend out on Saturday, and according to head coach John Ita, the first opportunity to compete went very well.

Saturday the Central A Blue Ponies spent the day competing at the Lewistown Invitational. Team scores were not available, and no individual finishes were submitted, but the Ponies are still confident they achieved everything they set out to accomplish this early in the season.

“It was a very positive weekend for us,” coach Ita said. “We were pleasantly surprised by our kids in some events, and we also had a number of kids who scored points or placed, and had never done so before. We also had a lot of young kids that you don’t hear their names, and you probably won’t hear their names for another year or two, but they got a taste of completion and realized they have some potential. We saw those positive things all day long, as well as our typical point getters grabbing those second-, third- and fourth-place finishes.”

Some veteran athletes who turned in a good weekend included Martha Stoker and Lacey Waid. Stocker won the shot put with a toss of more than 33 feet, and Waid got off on the right foot with a No. 1 finish in the pole vault.

But with little or no varsity track and field experience, a handful of young HHS athletes also stepped up.

Carlene Rennick had a toss of nearly 80 feet in the javelin and earned a top finish. And as Zane Anderson and Dakota Acor still continue to figure things out, they too had solid weekends in multiple events for coach Ita.

Corissa White also proved she could help the Ponies in the hurdle races Saturday, while both the boys and girls relay teams looked strong as well. HHS really worked on handoffs leading up to the weekend and it paid off, even with the girls long relay taking second place while missing key runners like Haley Ohm and Megan Erickson.

“We got a lot of kids in a lot of events and got times and mark,” Ita said. “It was a lot of fun yesterday, everywhere you looked you saw Havre kids competing in different events. And they were all excited and having fun. We were able to talk to kids about their marks and times, and they were all really excited about what we are doing.”

And after the long awaited opening weekend, the Ponies don’t slow down moving forward.

Wednesday the Ponies will compete at the Cal Wearly track meet in Havre, and Saturday the Ponies host the annual Havre Lions Invite. Both meets will take place at the Havre middle school track. And while the Cal Wearly is made up of mostly local Class B and Class C talent, the Ponies know they will be pushed after the short turnaround.

“Those local Class C schools are just loaded with talent,” Ita said. “North Star and Chinook always have a ton of talent, so it will be a good training day for us. We will have some rested bodies, and this meet will show us where we have improved.

“We are going to rest the kids (today),” Ita added. “Tempo them out, and then work on some detail things on Tuesday. We will use the meet on Wednesday as their hard workout day, then we will tempo again on Thursday, do detail work on Friday, and get ready for our meet here on Saturday, our hard training day again.”

Wednesday the Ponies will compete at the Cal Wearly track meet and Saturday the Ponies will host the Lions Invite, both meets taking place at the Havre middle school track.