Blue Pony runners head to Lewistown

While the Havre High cross country teams are entering their third week of competition, this weekend in Lewistown, there will be a couple of big differences between this meet and two previous ones.

For one, the course in Lewistown has more hills and should provide more of a challenge. But the other difference is that both Blue Pony teams will get their first real look at some other Class A opponents, when they run Saturday at the Lewistown Invitational. The meet will start at 10 a.m.

“I think that the kids are excited,” HHS head coach Josh Holt said. “It will give us a chance to get to run against Lewistown for the first time this season and some other schools on the eastern side that we will be competing with at the end of the year. So it will be good to see how we stack up against some of those other teams and runners.”

Both the Havre boys and Havre girls teams are coming off strong performances in Malta. The girls team won the meet, with Kadia Miller of Havre finishing second. The boys team also did well, earning a second-place finish. Yet, this week, the course itself should provide more of a challenge.

“The course that we are going to run in Lewistown will be a little more challenging,” Holt said. “We are running on their golf course and it’s pretty hilly, but that will be a good test for us.”

Miller will lead the way again for the Pony girls, and she will be joined by Kaylee Nystrom and Tamera O’Leary, who are both coming off top-10 finishes in Malta, wirh Nystrom taking fourth and O’Leary ninth. Amelia Miller is another strong runner for the Ponies. The rest of the varsity roster includes Lilly Taly, Rhoda Peterson and Melanie Jones.

“All our runners did a good job of improving from the first meet to the next,” Holt said. “That may be more difficult this week, but the girls have been looking very strong so far.”

When it comes to Pony boys, senior Austin Jones is the pace setter. He finished sixth in Malta for HHS, while junior Jakob Keller finished eighth. Yet, the rest of the team also joined Jones and Keller with solid finishes, as all seven Havre runners finished in the top 21. Cameron Pleninger was 13th for the Ponies, followed by Noah Azure, Trevor Williams, Quinn Reno and Barrett Kilgore. Those seven runners will all suit again this week for HHS.

“I think the boys team is also looking strong,” Holt said. “They have been working really hard and pushing themselves, and I think they are just going to keep getting better and better.”

The meet in Lewistown, which will include a number of other Class A teams will get started at 10 a.m. Saturday. Havre will then return home for its first and only home meet of the season. That will be Sept. 23 at the Havre Invitational on the MSU-Northern campus.