Blue Pony girls tops in Choteau, for a third straight win

Behind a total of five first-place finishes, the Havre High girls track team won its third straight track meet to open the season, edging Fairfield by one point to take home the Choteau Acantha Invitational Saturday.

The Blue Ponies scored 82 points and won the 1,600-meter relay, the final event, to knock off the Bulldogs who finished second with 81. HHS swept both relay races for the third straight meet, also getting first in the 400 relay. On top of that, freshman Sadie Filius won the 300 hurdles for the third time this season, posting a time of 50.60. Katie Wirtzberger also won the 200 (27.97) and Sarah Faber won the fifth individual title by taking first in the high jump (4-10).

“I think the most impressive thing is that just about all our kids are going out and getting PR’s (personal records),” HHS head coach John Ita said. “I think that shows that our kids are improving and that they are taking the coaching and that’s a good thing.”

Loy Waid also had another strong meet for the Ponies and finished second in the 100, posting a time of 13.52, which was a tenth of second faster than teammate Jessa Chvilicek who finished third with a 13.53. Filius also added to her point total with a fourth-place finish in the 100 hurdles (17.72) getting second to Tatum Hull of Chester-Joplin-Inverness who posted a time of 16.46. Joining Filius as the only Havre girls athlete to place in more than one event was Hannah Haslem, who finished fourth in the 1,600 (6:27) and sixth in the 800 after running a 3:01.

While the Ponies dominated the running events, they also did well in the jumping events and had four placers in the high jump, long jump and triple jump. Faber set the tone with her victory in the high jump, however, she also finished sixth in the long jump (14-08). Devyn Huebsch had her best jump of the season going 29-09 in the triple jump to get third and Grace Loftus finished fifth in the long jump (15-00).

Loftus, Wirtzberger, Chvilicek and Waid were all part of the short relay team that took first while the team that won the 1,600 relay consisted of Wirtzberger, Chvilicek, Filius and Waid.

Hull put together an impressive performance for CJI as she was also sixth in the 100 (13.86) and second in the 200 (28.62). Hull also won the long jump (16-07). Janae West of North Star also had a stellar showing, winning the javelin (110-05) and getting third in the pole vault (7.50). Haylee Johnson of Harlem had a top-two finish, getting second in the shot put (28-05) for Harlem

In the boys meet, Fairfield ran away with first place, scoring 109 points finishing well ahead of runner-up Jefferson, which ended up with 82. Great Falls Central was third with 58. Big Sandy and Chester-Joplin-Inverness, two teams from the District 9C, tied for fifth with 38 and the Pony boys were eighth with 26 points.

The highlight for the Ponies was junior Mason Rismon, who captured first in the javelin for the second time in four days after he won the same event at the Cal Wearley in Havre last Wednesday. Rismon threw 138-05 to finish first. His teammate, Dylan Chvilicek, finished fourth after a throw of 129-08.

“It was really good to see some of the improvements we saw in our boys throwers,” Ita said. “They did really strong and those guys have just continued to get better and better.”

On top of scoring points in some throwing events, Havre also managed to place some runners in the distance events as the Ponies had one runner find the top six in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200. Noah Azure was sixth in the 800 (2:22), Dylan Young was fifth in the 1,600 (5:07) and Jakob Keller was sixth in the 3,200 with a time of 11:35. The other Havre individual to place was Brock Nystrom who was fifth in the pole vault (9-06). Havre also took third as a team in the 400-relay with a team of Brandon Shaw, Andrew Boucher, Nolan Lotton and Rismon.

A number of athletes from Hi-Line schools stood out at the meet, including Brad Cichosz of Harlem, who swept the 1,600 and 3,200, finishing first in both with times of 4:52 and 11:04 respectively. Ryan Roth of Big Sandy was second in the 3,200; Kade Strutz of Big Sandy and Spencer Richter of CJI also finished runner up in the discus and the 200. Richter ran 24.63 to finish second in the sprint; Strutz threw 127-10 to get second in the discus.

The Ponies and many of the same teams in Choteau this past weekend will converge on the Havre Middle School track this Saturday for the Havre Lions Invitational. The events are scheduled to get underway at 9:30 a.m.