Tulloch scorches XC course for state title

It was a good day for Sanders County’s two high school cross-country teams.  And with the youth of the runners from both squads, the future looks bright indeed. 

Get some good shades. 

Led by sophomore sensation Marina Tulloch, a smooth runner from Plains High, Plains has a Class B state champion in its midst. 

And there could be more to come. 

Tulloch won the girls’ state individual championship Saturday with an outstanding time of 18 minutes, 33.2 seconds over the 5,000-meter (3,1-mile) course in Missoula. 

She broke the six-minute barrier with an average per mile time of 5:59, beating second-place finisher Kyla Meissner of Broadwater High (Townsend), who crossed the finish line with a time of 19:23.2 in a field of more than 185 competitors from 40 Class B schools. 

The win for Tulloch capped an amazing second half of the cross-country runner who broke onto the cross-country scene last year as a freshman on a team loaded with sophomores, freshman and several eighth graders. 

Manhattan won the girls’ team title with a score of 105 points, well ahead of runner-up Sweet Grass County High (Big Timber) which had 152 points. 

Tulloch’s first-place showing helped Plains place fifth in the team standings with 237 points, which are tallied by the finishes of the team’s runners.   

And there was more positive news for the local runners, as Plains boys’ harriers place third in the team chase, behind the tenth-place finish of Horsemen runner Owen John Jermyn, who clocked a time of 16:46.7. 

There’s more.   

Thompson Falls girls also had a strong team showing at the state meet, placing eighth out of 40 teams who participated.  The Lady Hawks were led by eighth-grader Audrey Fairbank, who finished twenty-fourth with a time of 21:02.9. 

And the Thompson Falls boys were eighteenth in the 41-team boys' field with 510 team points.  Manhattan made it a sweep of the boys’ and girls’ team titles when they added the boys’ title to their haul as they tallied a low score of 86 points. 

Other members of the Plains girls’ team included junior Savanah Costner, who crossed the finish line in 36th place with a time of 21:48.4; Ireland Corbin, 60th (22:47.0); Tia Bellinger, 65th (23:01.1) and Annika Ercanbrack, (75th) 23:15.6. 

T Falls competitors who took part, in addition Fairbank, were Aubrey Baxter, 31st (21:28.8); Lexi Franck, 43rd (22:02.8); Evalyn Edwards, 64th (23:00.1) and Peighton Kenney, 84th (28.38.3). 

And the boys competitors in addition who placed for T Falls included freshman Weston Block, 47th (18:21.0); Nathan Baxter, an eighth grader, 85th (19:22.9); Tuff Ryder, 101st, (19:45.1); Blake Shusterman, 125th (20:11.0);Luke Pastorius, 152nd (20:45.0) and Jakob Molina, 189th, (22:03.2). 

Both teams are loaded with underclassmen setting up some great meets for the next few years for local cross-country fans. 

Tulloch won several meets toward the end of the regular season, including a course record-breaking performance at the T Falls Invitational and finishing first at the Western Divisional meet two weekends ago in Missoula.