County teams take on A and AA schools at meet

MISSOULA – Track and field teams from Sanders County were busy competing in Missoula last weekend.

The Missoula Invitational at Missoula County Stadium featured a large number of teams and included Class A and AA squads in addition to the competing Class B teams.

The Plains girls had another impressive meet and finished the invitational in fourth place with a final team score of 72.5.

“For our athletes to perform as well as they did under pressure says a lot about their mental and physical toughness,” Plains Head Coach Denise Montgomery said.

The Thompson Falls girls took eleventh place with a team score of 27 points.

On the boy’s side of competition Thompson Falls took sixteenth place with 15 points and Plains tied Loyola Sacred Heart for seventeenth place with five team points.

Plains seniors Hailey Phillips and Kayla Holmes both had impressive weekends at the Missoula County Invitational.

Phillips took home the meet’s MVP award for track events, while Holmes took home the MVP award for field events.  

Phillips took first in the 300-meter hurdles, crossing the finish line with a time of 45.07.

Phillips also took second in the 100-meter hurdles, finishing the event with a time of 16.05.

In the 200-meter dash Phillips took third with a 26.61.

Holmes threw to a first place finish in the discus event.

Holmes earned the top spot in the event with a 131-0.

Holmes also took fourth in the 100-meter dash with at time of 13.53.

Leah Thompson of Plains took second in the discuss event with a throw of 125-7.

Thompson also placed third in the shot put event with a throw of 38-6.

In the javelin event Plains got big throws from Carley VonHeeder and Kimberly Earhart.

VonHeeder took second in the event with a throw of 125-6 and Earhart placed sixth with a throw of 121-11.

The Plains girls raced to a fourth place finish in the 1,600-meter relay with a time of 4:21.79.

Autrey Hannum led the Thompson Falls girls and finished the high jump event in second place with a jump of 5-01.

Shey Hannum took fourth in the high jump event with a 4-11.

A. Hannum also had top finishes in the triple jump and long jump events.

She finished fifth in the triple jump with a 34-5 and sixth in the long jump with a jump of 16-00.

McKenzie Holt and Josh Wulfekuhle led the boys of Thompson Falls.

Holt took fourth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.73 and Wulfekuhle took fifth in the 300-meter hurdles, crossing the finish line with a 42-73.

Competing for Plains, Russell Kujala raced to a fourth place finish in the 800-meter event.

Kujala placed with a time of 2:05.30.

Coach Montgomery recognized it was tough for the athletes to face off against competitors from much bigger schools and she was pleased with how well both the boy’s and girl’s teams handled the challenge.

“It gave the athletes an opportunity to perform on a big stage,” Montgomery said.

Both track and field teams will be back in Sanders County this week, going head-to-head at the Thompson Falls Invitational on Thursday, April 16.