Finishing in style
Arlee runners close out season with strong showing at state
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HELENA — Both the Arlee boys and girls cross country teams came away with top 10 finishes Saturday as the Class C state cross country meet was held at the Bill Roberts Golf Course.
Jesse Pfau led the Arlee boys to a seventh-place finish in the meet as he came in 24th individually with a time of 19:05.
“I was hoping to see Jesse in the top 15, but he still did an outstanding job for us,” Arlee coach Katea Dreiling said. “He has just done an amazing job all year. He ran another great race Saturday, it just wasn’t quite what he needed.”
All of Arlee’s boys were able to crack the top-50 as Trae Burland came in 30th with a time of 19:25, Nicholas Morigeau was 39th at 20:02, Al Plant came in 45th with a time of 20:18 and Michael Brown turned in a time of 20:27 to finish 47th.
“It was a really different course,” Dreiling said about the race. “You could never quite get a good stride on it. There were always up hills, down hills or corners everywhere you turned.”
The Mission girls also had a good day on the hilly course, finishing 10th.
Tayla Desjarlais overcame a lingering back injury to finish 55th with a time of 27:48 to lead the way while Kristyn Adams battled a sprained ankle to finish 56th with a time of 27:56. Desirae Nault was 64th with a time of 30:08 and Kaylene Adams shrugged off knee problems to come in 71st with a time of 39:09.
“I am super-happy about how the girls did,” Dreiling said. “We didn’t even have enough runners to field a girls team last year, so this is quite an improvement.”
While the teams hadn’t exactly figured out what they expected heading into the state meet, what they wanted to do was simple.
“We didn’t really have a goal going in. We just wanted to do better than we did last year,” Dreiling said.
It was a goal that both teams were able to achieve as the boys beat their ninth-place finish from a year ago while the girls placed as a team, something they hadn’t done the year before.
