Area tracksters ready for Class C meet

Once again, the Class C state track meet is going to have a Hi-Line feel to it. That’s because last week, plenty of area preps punched their ticket to the state meet.

Now, those athletes will head to this weekend’s Class C state meet, which starts today and runs through Saturday afternoon in Laurel.

On the girls side, Chinook, North Star and Fort Benton are all taking strong teams into this weekend’s meet. At the Northern C meet last week in Great Falls, the Sugarbeeters had a balanced scoring effort with a number of girls contributing with points, but no one did more for Chinook than Britney Nelson, who won the discus with a throw of 117-09 and the shot put with a throw of 37-11, to go along with a fifth-place showing in the javelin.

Kailey Kleinjan also had a stellar day for the Beeters as she won the 200-meter dash with a time of 27.15, while also finishing second in the 100. Other Chinook girls who placed included Hannah Weber, who was fourth in the 3,200, Taylor Neibauer, who was sixth in the 100 hurdles and Abigail Ellison, who finished sixth in the triple jump.

Chinook may have had one of the better team performances in the Northern C girls meet, but no individual can claim they had a better performance than North Star’s Tylynn Rettig. The senior, who is going to Carroll College on a track scholarship, put together another dominant performance Thursday, winning the 100 with a time of 12.87 and the pole vault after vaulting 9-09. She also finished second in the triple jump and 200, as well as third in the long jump. Lily Pedersen also placed for the Knights after finishing sixth in the pole vault.

Fort Benton also had almost all of its point scored by one athlete as Kaitlyn Bird placed in three events. She won the 800 with a time of 2:50 and came in third in the 400 and 300 hurdles. Cassidy McCarthy also did well for the Longhorns, finishing second in the pole vault and fifth in the 1,600.

Now, the likes of Rettig, Kleinjan and Nelson have the best chance to bring home gold medals this weekend.

On the boys side, Chester/J-I, North Star, Chinook and Box Elder are all well represented in the state meet. Last week in Great Falls, The Hawks were led to their third-place finish thanks to an outstanding performance from Justin May, who notched a jump of 41-01 to win the triple jump and a throw of 163-11 to win the javelin. May also finished second in 300 hurdles and third in the long jump.

Brandon Theel also had a good day for C/J-I with a second-place showing in the discus in addition to finishing fifth in the 100. Corey Kelly ended up in third in the 110 hurdles, while Clark Diemert finished sixth in the high jump.

The North Star boys also had a solid showing and finished eighth with 30 points in the meet. A big chunk of those points came from Jaxon Simonson, who won the discus with a throw of 127-01 and finished second in the shot put. Payton Peterson also had a good day for the Knights and finished third and sixth in the high jump and long jump, respectively. Matthew Helmbrecht pitched in by finishing third in the discus and sixth in the javelin.

In terms of individual performances, Shane Ketchum of Box Elder and Ben Hulme of Fort Benton had two of the best last week. Ketchum finished second in the 1,600 and 3,200, while adding a third in the 800. Hulme, on the other hand, was second in the 400 and fourth in the 200.

The Chinook boys also had multiple point scorers as the Beeters finished ninth with 24 points. Cody McCracken was a top performer for the Beeters with fourth-place finishes in the 110 and 300 hurdles. Kyler Johnson also did well, finishing third in the 3,200 and fourth in the 1,600. Travis Roth contributed by finishing sixth in the 800.

This weekend in Laurel, May and Ketchum are the Hi-Line’s best chances at state championship gold.

The 2015 Class C state track meet starts with preliminaries today and finals Saturday at the Laurel Sports Complex.