Lady Bobcats claim 14C meet

The Superior Lady Bobcats were indeed superior thanks to depth and outstanding individual performances this past weekend as they ran away with the Western 14C District track and field title at Missoula’s County Public Schools stadium.

Led by several multiple winners and top five finishes throughout the scheduled events, the Lady Bobcats amassed an impressive 243 team points to finish well ahead of surprising Hot Springs, which finished second with 101 points.

In the men’s competitions, Charlo’s boys reigned supreme in the team chase with 169 points, a lot of which came from junior Keaton Piedalue’s oustanding weekend. Superior’s boys claimed second place with 137 points, while third place went to the Hot Springs boys, just 10 points behind Superior with 127 points.

The Friday-Saturday event featured a hodge-podge of weather conditions, including snow pellets, rain, bone chilling winds and welcome breaks of semi-warm sunshine in the shadows of the snow-covered mountains surrounding Missoula.

A pair of state-caliber seniors paced the Superior ladies’ attack while depth added significantly to the Lady Bobcats’ title wave.

Sorren Reese, who won the javelin event as a freshman, then watched from the sidelines as co-vid concerns wreaked havoc and destroyed regional and state championship plans for the past two years, took a giant step toward reclaiming her javelin title when she nosed out second-place Katelyn Christensen of Hot Springs in this year’s javelin final for 14C.

Both ladies are headed to Carroll College next year on track and field scholarships.

Reese, who has a Class C best throw of 127+ feet this year, won the event with a toss of 115 feet 4 inches, while Christensen threw the spear 113-8 to nail down second.

Noxon’s Emily Brown, another of the many competitors with high placings in various events, was third with a throw 104-4.

All three advance to the Divisional tournament this weekend in Frenchtown.

Reese, who will compete in the javelin and heptathlon events in college, also added a first place medal in the high jump, were she recorded a personal record (PR) leap of five feet even. Brown was second, clearing 4-4.

Reese added first place medals by running legs on the winning 4X100 and 4X400 meters relays. And she closed out her scoring binge with a second place showing in the 800 meters run.

Christensen, who will also throw javelin at Carroll next year, emerged as the top sprinter at this year’s meet, winning both the 100 and 200 meters sprints, edging out Superior speedster Isabella Pereira, who crossed the finish line second in both sprints.

Christensen also grabbed a pair of second place showings in the shot put and discus events, both of which were won by Superior senior Cassie Green, who put the shot 34 feet even, then hurled the discus 102-11.

Pereira, a junior who is also a standout point guard on the Lady Bobcats basketball team, was also a multiple winner, placing first in the triple jump and coming out on top in the girls’ pole vault event. Teammate Green also added a fourth-place finish in the women’s 100 meters to her point total haul.

Lady Bobcat Molly Patko was another first-place finisher for Superior, leaping 15-4 to win the long jump competition.

Superior’s Alysha Ryan won both the 100 meters and 300 meters hurdle events, edging Hot Springs’ junior Josie Uski in both races.

The Noxon girls also got in on the first place medal count when freshman Stephanie Everett won the 1600 meters run, just beating Superior distance ace Akasha Azure at the tape. The two competitors switched places in the grueling 3200 meter run with Azure taking first and Everett claiming second in the long distance finals.

The 400 meters run was won by Noxon freshman Skye Irgens, while Superior’s Braelynn Mangold was first across the line in the 800 meters event.

In the end, Superior’s team depth was too much for the other girls teams to overcome as the Lady Bobcats led the charge and finished with the most competitors moving on to this weekend’s Divisional competition.

The top seven finishers from the 14C in each event move on to the next step in the pursuit of a state title.

The boys competition, while much closer in the team title chase, was in many ways similar to the girls events.

Charlo rode the speedy legs of Piedalue to their team title as the junior took first in all three sprints, winning the 100, 200 and 400 meters races. He broke the tape at 12:21 in the 100 meters, just ahead of Superior’s Decker Milender who was second with a time of 12:45. Hot Springs freshman Weston Slonaker was third at 12:68.

Piedalue won the 200 meters sprint event with a time of 24:13, enough to edge out Superior’s Silas Acker (24:77). Slonaker was third in the race with a time of 25:19.

Piedalue made it a sweep of the sprints with his victory in the 400 meters race, finishing ahead of teammate Tayre Brown. Acker was third in the 400.

Milender, meanwhile, won the 800 meters run with a time of 2:08.44.

Hot Springs dominated the two hurdling events, with Quincy Styles-Depoe finishing first in the 110 meters hurdles, just ahead of teammate Kyle Lawson. The two switched finishing positions in the 300 meters hurdles, with Lawson claiming first and Styles-Depoe finishing number two.

One of the biggest groups of fans gathered around an individual event was at the shot put arena, where Noxon senior Cade VanVleet threw 51-6, nearly eight feet further than runnerup Garth Parker of Hot Springs, who pushed the weighted ball 43-10, a personal record throw.

VanVleet moved over to the discus venue and once again bested Parker in the battle for first, with VanVleet taking the event based on a throw of 128-4, while Parker had another PR with his fling of 121-7.

The leading medal winner for the boys was freshman Ricky Williams of Noxon, who swept the jumping events, winning the long jump, triple jump and high jump while recording PR’s in the long and triple jumps.

Charlo won the 1600 and 3200 meters runs and swept both relay races to secure it’s top team standing.

The District’s best performers from this past weekend now move on to Frenchtown this Friday and Saturday to compete in the Western C Divisional finals, with top finishers from that event, along with others who equal of beat state qualifying standards, advancing to the State finals in Great Falls May 27 and 28.