Morley places first in Ronan, BHS cuts time

Bigfork High School’s cross country team cut down on their times and showed individual progress at the Ronan Invitational cross country meet on Sept. 15.

The team took the good with the bad on Saturday. Coach Sue Loeffler said the course was easier than the one they ran in Kalispell the previous week with rolling hills and a clearly marked path. However, smokey atmosphere presented a bit of a challenge.

“It was okay to run, but it wasn’t the best,” Loeffler said. “You couldn’t see the Mission Mountains. It got worse after we got done.”

Sophomore Makena Morley left her competition in the dust with her first place time of 17:14, well ahead of second place’s time of 17:56 and third’s 18:09. Chelsea Olson also had an exceptional run, placing 19th out of 51 runners with a time of 20:35.

On the boys’ side, freshman Logan Morley was the fastest Bigfork runner out there, placing 22nd with a time of 16:21.42. Carson Cantrell was close behind in 28th with 16:42 and Chance Kittle finished with 18:59.

Because BHS has a young team, the majority of their runners competed in the JV division. Loeffler said they will all run as varsity at the conference meet in Ronan on Oct. 13 and at state on Oct. 20.

On the JV side, Bigfork’s runners showed massive progress this week. Emily Pataky took two minutes off her time with 24:41. Ellessa Henion knocked exactly one minute off her time with 22:38.

“George (Gibson) ran a really awesome race for a freshman, his best race so far and he improved by a minute,” Loeffler said. “I saw big growth with George, to me it was one of the big ones. Emily (Pataky) pushed harder at the beginning than I think she has.”

Gibson ran an 18:49, the fastest Bigfork JV time for last weekend.

Cody Johnson had 19:46, Craig Cheroske was close behind with 19:47, and Shad Pataky ran 22:01.

The cross country team had a new addition this week, with Japanese foreign exchange student Shogo Tomomura. Tomomura ran a 23:12.

This week the BHS cross country team will be working on grouping their runners together in practice to improve their team’s overall score once they begin competing as a team rather than as individuals in a few weeks.

The cross country team’s next meet is in Polson on Sept. 22 at 10 a.m.