Ronan cross country has another good showing at Flathead Invite

KALISPELL — Ronan cross country girls continue to finish strong, taking second at the Flathead Invitational last weekend, while the boys took sixth, with both teams beating a host of A and AA squads from around Western Montana.

The girls earned 88 points, with Flathead ahead with 24. They beat out 11 other teams.

Terinee McCready broke the 20-minute barrier with 19:14 landing second. Sadie McMillan came in sixth with 20:09 and Kaneesha Benson finished 11th with 20:33. Briana Malmquist came in 23rd with 21:28 while Kelsey Salomon took 62nd to round out the top five.

"[McCready] gave Brooke Andrus of Bigfork a big push in the girls' varsity division to finish second with a time of 19:41 which is outstanding for this point in the season," said head coach Gale Decker.

Decker congratulated McMillan, Benson and Malmquist for finishing in the top 25.

"It was quite an accomplishment considering the level of talent at the meet," he said. "I think we got a glimpse of how good our girls can be as they defeated five AA teams and kept their score under 100 points. Our emphasis for now is to cut as much time as possible in our number five, six and seven spots because that will determine how we finish at state."

As for the boys, they came in sixth with 224 beating Hellgate with 239.

"Having two Spokane schools with cross-country tradition made the boys' division extremely competitive," Decker said.

Michael Fisher led his team, finishing third with 16:08 and proved that he could be a contender for the state individual title, Decker said.

Andrew Graham, Buddy Cheff, Erick Stedje and Levi Maughan rounded Ronan's top five placers at the meet, with Maughan cutting nearly a minute from his Libby performance earlier in the month.

"All of our teams had a great day. I think the change in weather did everyone some good as we had many people turn in outstanding performances," Decker said.

Ronan hosts an invitational today (Thursday) at 2 p.m.