Lady Dogs finish second at Libby XC Invite

The Whitefish cross-country season is off and running following Saturday’s invitational in Libby.

The girls took second overall in team scores behind strong showings from freshmen Josephine Vardell, who took ninth with a time of 20:28, and Jessica Henson, who came in 12th with 20:40. Sophomores Braya Hobson and Ella Greenberg also cracked the top 20, coming in at 15 and 17. Glacier High School took first in both the boys and girls races. Ten teams competed at the meet.

“Our girls team came out extremely strong and ran a tremendous team race. I really love how the girls ran together,” Whitefish head coach Richard Menicke said.

Both Vardell and Henson’s times were in the program’s top 10 all-time list for freshmen runners, and Hobson made it into the school’s top 20 list too.

“It was a slightly historic effort for our first race, and a great way to start the season,” Menicke said.

The boys team placed sixth overall behind senior Ethan Potthoff, who took 13th with a time of 17:50.

Menicke said he’s excited to see how the young team develops and improves, and a quality first meet makes him optimistic moving forward.

“It was a really positive first meet for the entire team,” he said. “The boys have some work to do but I’m very confident that we’re going to improve considerably. The good news is that everyone’s healthy. It was a good start and now we know where we want to be.”

The team travels to Cut Bank for their next meet Friday.