Bluehawks soar past competition

THOMPSON FALLS – The track and field team started the season on the right foot as the Bluehawks boys team took first place at the Ronan Invite.

The boys were able to sneak the win away from Frenchtown, winning the meet by three points and a final score of 90.

According to Head Coach Randy Symon, a handful of the boys gave it their all and shined throughout their performances.

Coach Symon credited Tanner Laws, Logan Naegeli, Dylan Vaught, McKenzie Holt and Garrett Strine with strong performances, helping the boys tally their first win of the season.

Although the team performed well, Coach Symon said the results could be a little deceitful since many of the teams, including Thompson Falls, were not at full strength.

“It’s kind of deceitful somewhat in that we did real well but we did real well against schools that didn’t have all their players there or schools that aren’t as strong this year as they were last year,” Coach Symon said.

Ronan was a perfect example of this. The team was missing 28 of their athletes due to a music festival.

Regardless of the lack of complete teams, Coach Symon was proud of his kids.

Vaught took fifth place in the 100 with a time of 12:02; Holt took third in the 200 with a time of 24.30; while Naegeli took second in the 1600 with a time of 5:01, followed closely by Laws who had a time of 5:02. During the 3,200, Laws and Naegeli still led the pack with Laws in second at 11:05 and Naegeli in third with 11:10.

Strine placed in numerous events, taking fifth in the 110 hurdles with 18.24 and fourth in the 300 hurdles with 45.68.

Vaught was able to place two more times taking sixth place in both the long jump with 18-8 and the triple jump with 38-3.

Tyler Riffle took third in the 400 with a time of 58:17, while Chris Friesen and Will VanHoss took fifth and sixth place respectively.

Riffle also took fifth in the 800 with 2:22, while Kyle Kinnick took fifth in the 1,600 with 5:12. Jake Gascon and Joe Lundberg received 10-0 in the pole vault along with a few other competitors.

The girls also had a strong performance and took third place in the meet with a score of 58.

Coach Symon credited the Hannum girls with a sound performance. As a freshman, Autrey Hannum took a first place with in the 100 hurdles with a time of 17.20 and placed third in the 300 hurdles with 52.12. She also placed third in the high jump with 4-10 and second in the triple jump with 33-1.

“She’s a freshman and it was her first time she’s ran in a high school meet. She did good,” Coach Symon said.

Shey Hannum also pulled out a strong performance and competed against her sister in multiple events.

Shey took second in the 300 hurdles with 51.92, fourth in the triple jump with 30-9 and took first in the high jump with 5-1 – a performance Coach Symon was particularly proud of.

He said 5-1 was a very good mark for any athlete.

As for now, the team plans to continually improve before their next meet.

“(We’ll) try to work on some of the things that we need to put together and fix,” Coach Symon said.

The next meet will be in Missoula at the Jim Johnson Invite. Coach Symon said the meet is a large one with a healthy amount of B and C schools.

“Hopefully with a little more of our team members there we’ll see what happens,” Coach Symon said.