Noxon's lucky thirteen

Thirteen may be an unlucky number, but 13 Noxon tracksters are heading to the Divisional meet with a lot of confidence due to a slew of personal records falling at Polson.

Thirteen may be an unlucky number, but 13 Noxon tracksters are heading to the Divisional meet with a lot of confidence due to a slew of personal records falling at Polson.

Adam Moore started off the day for Noxon by placing sixth in the 200 with a personal record of 45.12s.

It was the start of a big day for Moore as he placed in all five events with his best showing coming in the javelin where he grabbed a second-place finish.

Johnny Carter also scored a personal record by running 2:17 in the 800 and placing second.

On the girls side, there were Lady Devils who gained personal records on the day. Casey Chenoweth placed fourth in the shot put with a throw of 28-8, Shelby Clark placed fourth in the 300 hurdles with a time of 53.81 and Shay Lloyd placed second in the mile with a time of 7 minutes flat.

Besides the athletes who scored personal records there were also several athletes who tied their personal records.

Banks Stocking matched two of his personal records by jumping 5-6 in the high jump, 5th place, and leaping 19-5 in the long jump, third place. It was an agonizing day for Stocking who came oh so close to breaking his personal records and came oh so close to placing higher in the long and triple jump. He got beat out by one inch in the long jump and was beaten by one and a half inches in the triple jump.

Brent Wilson also tied a personal record by placing fifth in the 300 hurdles with a time of 45.6.

For gold-medal winning performances, junior Derek Jensen was the sole member of the team to grab a first-place finish when he won the shot put with a throw of 44-2, not too far off from his best throw of 45-5.

"He's been doing what he needs to do. He'd like to be throwing closer to 50, but we're not done yet," says Coach Kelly Moore. "We'd like to get best records at divisionals and state."

With this in mind the team prepares for the divisional meet starting this Friday at Big Sky Highschool in Missoula where Coach Moore hopes his athletes perform even better.

"Now this week we need to step it up a notch and continue to improve and keep on getting better," says Coach Moore.

With tougher competition Coach Moore is hoping to have at least eight of his athletes place at Missoula this weekend and stamp their tickets to state, which would be more than half of those that made it to divisionals.