Ronan cross country teams look to state
Justin Grandon leaves runners from Whitefish and Libby in his dust as he sprints to the finish line at the Northwest A conference championships which were held at the Silver Fox golf course last Saturday. Zach Urness/Leader
Zach Urness - Leader Staff
Sadie McMillan, Terinee McCready and Danny Beavers all earned all-conference honors last Saturday at the northwest A conference cross country championships, placing in the Top 10 to finish off the regular season, but this weekend's state meet is the one that really counts.
Both boys and girls have had very good success at state in recent years. The girls have taken first place in class A the last two years and the boys took first place as a team two years ago.
To tune up for the big race, the teams competed at the Silver Fox golf course for conference honors and the girls took second place overall with 63 points, trailing only Whitefish and the boys team ended in fourth place with 118 points.
"The girls are a little banged up, but I thought they bounced back from last week and ran pretty well," said head coach Gale Decker. "The boys times were a little big slower than I thought they'd be."
Both teams will travel to Helena for the state tournament this Saturday.
Sadie McMillan was the top finisher for the girls team, taking third place with a time of 19:30. Terinee McCready, usually the team's number one runner, was slowed by illness but still finished seventh with a time of 19:47. Taylor Linse (21:05), Kelsey Salomon (21:07), Keenesha Benson (21:48), Shelby Sward (22:43) and Ali Anderson (23:08) rounded out the times for the girls team.
"Ali has a stress fracture in her foot which hurt her time," said Decker, "but Kelsey had a great day and really stepped up. Sadie also ran her best time of the season. Our depth really helped us out."
The boys were led, as they have been all season, by Danny Beavers, who took ninth place overall with a time of 17:31.
"It was good to see Danny make all-conference," said Decker. "It has been a goal of his this season and it was big for him to get it."
Justin Grandon (18:04), Levi Maughan (18:13), Justin Dusty Bull (18:27), Kevin Werbliski (18:42), Jordan Franklyn (18:49) and Ryan Hardy (19:37) rounded out the top runners for the Chiefs team.
With the state meet upcoming, Decker said that the team will take it easy this week during practice to help get healthy.
"Hopefully we'll run a little better and with a few nagging injuries we're going to try and get everybody healthy," said Decker. "The goal for the boys is to finish in the top half and for the girls, our goal is to come home with a trophy. I think if we're healthy, it's something we can definitely do."