As easy as A-B-C

POLSON — The field was stacked with quality track teams at the ABC Invitational last Saturday and Polson athletes still found a way to shine against their Class A opposition. While Corvallis won both boys and girls team titles at the meet, the Pirates and Lady Pirates had 12 different placers and three champions.

POLSON — The field was stacked with quality track teams at the ABC Invitational last Saturday and Polson athletes still found a way to shine against their Class A opposition. While Corvallis won both boys and girls team titles at the meet, the Pirates and Lady Pirates had 12 different placers and three champions.

For the boys, Riley Sampson and Clark Rubel provided a powerful combination for Polson in the throws. Sampson set a new personal record and increased the best throw in Class A for the shotput with a first place finish (52-7), while Rubel placed second (50-6) despite not being able to do a full spin throw because of a football injury.

Sampson also placed sixth in the discus (139-3.5). Jacy Mullen was sixth in the javelin (145-11). In the sprint races, Vince DiGiallonardo placed third in the 100-meter dash (11.60), just three hundreths of a second off the leader. In the 400-meter dash, Chris Cote placed second (52.99). Adam Schmidt anchored the Pirates in the hurdles with a sixth-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles (17.02) and a fifth-place finish in the 300-meter hurdles (43.24).

Jimmy Bjorge ran strong in the distance races, setting a personal record and placing fourth in the 1,600-meter race (4:44.76). Anna DiGiallonardo and Claudia Hewston led the girls, who finished third in the team scoring at the event. DiGiallonardo was second in both the 100-meter (12.88) and 200-meter dash (26.33), and took first in the long jump (16-2.5).

Hewston placed first in the 1,600-meter run (5:29.03) and was third in the pole vault (8-6). Those two weren’t the only placers as Polson got tremendous production from other athletes as well. Aja Starkey placed second in the 3,200-meter race (11:51.09) while Alisha Jore was fourth in the 400-meter race (65.92).

Erica Alfiero got points for the Lady Pirates in the hurdles, placing fifth in the 100-meter hurdles (18.51) and sixth in the 300-meter hurdles (53.56).

In the throws, Jewel Zakir-Ackerman was third in the shot put (32-4) and fifth in the discus (96-9) while Shelbi Mallon was fourth in the shot put (31-11). Kat Medland was sixth in the pole vault (8-0).

Polson will compete at divisionals next weekend, May 18-19, in Columbia Falls.