Making a Statement
Polson's youthful squad continues to excel
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MISSOULA — Class A runners be aware: The Lady Pirates are for real.
Fresh off a third-place finish at the Flathead Invitational in Kallispell, the Lady Pirates cross country team made another strong statement in Missoula this weekend with a 10th-place finish in the Mountain West Classic.
Against the largest field of competitors in the history of the event, Polson came away with the second-best finish of any Class A school there, behind only defending state champion Whitefish.
“We knew that we were going to have a good team coming into this season, but it has been really amazing to get to work with this much talent,” head coach Matt Seeley said. “I had a feeling that we would be able to do pretty well this season. Whitefish is still an amazing team, though. We were able to see what we need to do so that we can finish closer to them in the future.”
Polson’s racers faced an environment quite different from most of the races they’re used to running as more than 300 competitors filled the course and hundreds of spectators battled for viewing positions.
“The competition is a little nerve racking but also exciting. The kids always look forward to running at this meet every year. Running in such a large race is both fun and motivational for us,” Seeley said. “It is different from most of the races that we run during the season. There is always someone around you and that helps you stay focused on what you need to do. It helps you remember that you can always push to move up in the race. A race like this gives us a chance to see how much harder we need to work.”
Led once again by superstar freshman Aja Starkey, the Lady Pirates finished with a total of 388 points to come in 10th with an average time of 20:23.62 per runner.
Starkey battled it out with several elite runners at the front of the field, finishing fourth individually with a time of 17:59.27. The time, which is the fastest recorded in Class A girls so far this season, would have won the Class A division at the state meet last season by a full minute.
Fellow freshman Claudia Hewston finished 50th with a time of 20:08.78 while the team’s senior leader (and Aja’s older sister) Mesa Starkey finished 64th with a time of 20:28.51. A pair of freshman finished out the Polson performance as Tegan Bauer was 69th with a time of 20:35.01 and Alisha Jore was 201st with a time of 22:45.11.
“Aja held in there and ran a great race with an elite group of runners. Couple that with the great performances from everyone else and we had the best finish we have had in this race since the mid ‘90s,” Seeley said.
On the boy’s side, the Pirates finished 41st out of a field of 46 teams at the large meet.
Alex Nystrom was the Pirates top runner, finishing 142nd with a time of 17:43.51 while Jimmy Bjorge was 159th with a time of 18:00.40. Mike Bournstein finished 279th with a time of 19:24.79, Nick Andrews was 300th with a time of 19:42.41, and Tel Motichka was 301st with a time of 19:42.93.
Both teams will hit the road this week as they travel to Spokane for the Erik Anderson Invitational Saturday.
