Home Turf: Ponies excited for Havre Invite

The Havre High cross country teams may have more important meets than the Havre Invitational, but there are few races that both Blue Pony teams look forward to more than their home meet.

And Saturday in Havre, on the campus of Montana State University-Northern, both Pony squads will get their first and only chance to compete in front of their hometown fans. The meet will get underway at 11 a.m. The varsity boys will run at 12:20 p.m. followed by the varsity girls at 1 p.m.

"I don't know if it's their favorite meet," HHS head coach Josh Holt said. "But I think it's one of the ones that they look forward to the most. All of the parents will be there and their friends will get to go too. People from the school will be there, so they are excited. They love the course and they will get a chance to run on it this week and I think they are just really excited to go out there and show everyone what they have."

There will be a variety of teams from along the Hi-Line and beyond, as Havre will compete against schools like Box Elder, Glasgow, Cut Bank, Lewistown, Hobson, Poplar, Sunburst, Centerville and Dodson, among others.

"It's going to be on the same course that we ran last year," Holt said. "We obviously know the course so that will help us a little bit."

Through the first month of the season, Pony girls have gotten off to a strong start, thanks in large part to some stellar performances from sophomore Kadia Miller, who has finished in the top 10 in each meet this season. The girls won the team crown in Malta, before finishing seventh last week in Lewistown, even without No. 3 runner Tamera O'Leary. The freshman will be back in the lineup this week for the Ponies, along with Kaylee Nystrom, who continues to impress. She finished 12th in Lewistown and will be the No. 2 runner again this week. The other varsity runners for the Havre girls will be Amelia Miller, Lilly Talh, Rhoda Peterson and Melanie Jones.

The boys team will be led into action by senior Austin Jones, who finished 16th last week in Lewistown. Just like the girls, the Pony boys finished seventh last week in Lewistown and also ran well in Malta, where they were second. Behind Jones, Jakob Keller has been a consistent performer for the Ponies this season, along with fellow varsity runners Cameron Pleninger, Quinn Reno, Barrett Kilgore, Noah Azure and Trevor Williams.

The junior varsity meets, which will be run just prior to the varsity races, will feature the rest of the Havre runners from both the boys and girls teams, such as Andrew VandenBos, Austin Delarosa, Aylan Pratt, Dylan Young, Josiah Harrison, Riley Kilgore, Sid Mofit, Torek Swenson, Aleciah Small, Grace Loftus, Hannah Pratt, Ireland Coyne, Madison Shennum, Natalie Verploegen, Ryen Olson and Willy LaSmith.

The Havre Invite varsity races will start at 12:20 p.m., with the boys going first, followed by the girls race at 1 p.m.