Thompson Falls Cross Country runs hard at Polson

POLSON – Thompson Falls competed at the Polson Invitational on Saturday, September 21st in a unique running experience that had the athletes jumping over logs and hay bales during their run towards the finish.

The logs were strategically placed right before and after hills, while other obstacles such as a hay bale jump occurred in the cattle chute by the rodeo grounds.

The interesting obstacles provided did not thwart the team’s drive for good times.

“I was quite impressed with how well our runners performed,” said Head Coach Sarah Naegeli. “We went in with the goal to have fun, work hard and see what happens and times were great.”

Coach Naegeli said the athletes seemed to enjoy most of the obstacles – something that proved to take a lot of energy from the runners.

“They were quite tired at the end of the race. And the junior high runners really had fun,” said Coach Naegeli.

Both Kyle Kennick and Lindsey Owens impressed Coach Naegeli at Polson and she is excited to see what the two will do at the next event.

Out of the eight teams, the Thompson Falls boys took fifth place with 93 points.

Logan Naegeli led the Bluehawks with a time of 17:47, finishing in 9th place overall. Naegeli was followed by Bluehawk Kyle Kennick who finished the race in 19:08 and took 19th overall.

Josh Wulfekuhle, Will VanHuss and Caleb Hamner ran the race in 19:39, 19:42 and 20:46 respectively taking 23rd, 25th and 38th place.

As for the boy’s junior varsity team, Daniel Kanak led the Bluehawks with a 24th place finish and a time of 22:31 in his first race of the season. Flo Baass took second for the team with a 27th place finish in a time of 22:42.

For the varsity girls, Aicia Curran ran in 25:09, succeeding in first place for the ladies and 31st place in all. Lindsey Owens followed with a finish at 35th place with a time of 26:04 and Nikki Burwig came in third for the team in 38th place with a time of 28:32.

As for the middle school girls, Hope Slater ran her race in 11:45 coming in 22nd place in the invitational, followed by Lady Hawk Rachel Ribeiro with a time of 13:09 in 45th place.

Parker McConnel led the middle school boys with a time of 10:14 landing him in first place for the Thompson Falls middle schools boys and ninth in all. Colby Lantz finished the race in 10:58, Ethan Brown with 11:02, Lucas Fuhrman in 11:30, Nathan Burwin in 11:38, Quinn Struve Holton in 11:38, Curt Hedley with 18:05 and Colton Hedley with 18:29.

The middle schoolers raced in a 1.7-mile race and both boys and girls had a large pool of competitors with 85 boys and 79 girls running in all.

According to Coach Naegeli, Thompson Falls was well represented in the open races.

“The coaches (and) parents were quite exhausted after running the races,” stated Coach Naegeli in an email. “More power to the cross country members who ran the races and then recovered enough to cheer us on!”

In the open race, Denton Long took third and Cheri Fuhrman, Teresa Nelson and Sarah Naegeli ran in the three-mile.

Gage Fuhrman and Jenny Curran participated in the 1.7-mile open race.

The Thompson Falls Cross Country team is headed to the Mountain West competition in Missoula on Saturday, September 28.

“Our main goal for Mountain West is to see what it’s like to compete in a huge running field and familiarize the runners with what will also be the state race course. It’s our homecoming week so it will be a nice finale to all the chaos and fun,” said Coach Naegeli.