Cross Country: LHS competes at monster meet in Missoula

Participating in the largest-ever Mountain West cross country meet Saturday in Missoula, Libby High School’s results featured a couple of personal bests on a course the Loggers will see again later this year at state.

Coach Rod Tempel believed it would be best for his runners to stay together. Combining all participants in all divisions, the meet at the University of Montana Golf Course included more than 2,000 runners.

“We didn’t stay together as a group as I planned but when you have 400, 500 runners, it’s a little difficult to stay together,” Tempel said. “It was a heck of a pack … the first mile was just total chaos.”

The end was also chaotic for meet officials trying to keep runners in the right order.

Libby’s top placing of the day occurred in the girls race when foreign-exchange student Nikola Falk finished 63rd with a time of 20:27.

Lindsey Arnald ran in her first varsity race and finished 299th in 25:00. She ran her first meet in the junior varsity race at the Farragut Invite in Idaho.

“She cut over a minute per mile off her time at Farragut,” Tempel said. “She’s a sprinter, she’s never run this far before … so she’ll get much better.”

Elizabeth Rodgers finished 316th in 28:54.

For the boys, Will Lott and Jacob Thomas stayed close and each recorded personal-best times. Lott finished 231st in 18:26 – an improvement of more than 30 seconds on the time he ran on the same course last year at state. Thomas followed with an 18:27 for a placing of 233rd. It was the first time he had ever finished under 19 minutes.

Ben Graziano also broke the 19-minute barrier for the first time with a time of 18:50 for 265th place. Zeke Carlson also had a personal-best with a time of 19:27 – good for 318th.

Jacob McCrohan was 330th in 19:44, Matt Nelson came in at 20:38 for 348th and Cody Elliott finished 357th in 21:28.

“I thought they handled it really well,” Tempel said about the sizeable meet. “I didn’t feel any of our kids were intimidated and ran really well for the most part.”

Libby’s boys were 48th out of 52 schools that had complete teams.

Now that the Loggers have competed on the UM Golf Course route, Tempel said he plans to talk strategy with his runners for the state meet on Oct. 24.

Libby heads to the Thompson Falls Invitational on Thursday and will participate in a three-school meet on Saturday at Eureka.