Alberton used first meet to find starting point for rest of season

With only having close to four days outside in the past two weeks, the Alberton track team headed to Missoula on March 31st for the Jim Johnson Invitational at the Dornblaser Field.

"We'd only been outside four days in the last two weeks so I told them to think of the meet as a competitive practice," said Rachael Clevenger, head coach. "I told them to just come out and try to do your best. And that's what they did."

Clevenger said that they she wanted the athletes to find out where they were so they could at least have a starting point to work from as the year progresses.

"Some did really well," she said. "And for some it was their first track meet and so they were surprised at all the rules, all the kids and it was overwhelming for some them. But for the most part they did really well. We had some good times, good distances for our first track meet."

The Alberton placed fourteenth in overall team standings with seven points. Overall, the Alberton girls took ninth place.

In the 100 meter dash, Josh Webb took sixth with a time of 12.02 seconds and Drew Clark also took a sixth place finish in the 110 hurdles with a time of 18.07 seconds. The 1,600 meter relay team (Brandon Lehl, Todd Myrstol, Josh Webb and Chet Gass) took sixth place with a time of 4:00.17.

On the girls' side, Danielle Hanley scored a third place win in the 200 meter dash with a time of 29.75 seconds. Hanley also took third in the javelin throw with a distance of 90-9. Jenna Roush took a fourth place finish in the 400 meter dash with a time of 1:06.96 and she also took third in the 800 with a time of 2:55.07.

Clevenger said that she felt that the boy's short relay team showed some promise. The 400 relay team consists of runners Brandon Lehl, Todd Myrstol, Josh Webb and Matt Foley. She felt that for only having practiced on it twice, they did really well.

"They were actually really surprised and excited," she said. "They ran pretty decent and we're really excited for what we could get out of that."

The relay team took fifth place with a time of 48:59.

As for what needs to be worked, Clevenger said that conditioning wise she needs to keep working with the 400 and up runners to get them out and training a little better so they can compete more. The next scheduled track meet is on Saturday, April 10 at Eureka.