RSI athletes find rhythm in Bigfork, Durglo wins 2 events
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
3 of 3 free articles.
BIGFORK — With a lot of their teammates away at a music festival, the few Ronan-St. Ignatius tracksters at the Bigfork Invitational Saturday made some noise of their own.
Mission junior Adessa Durglo won the long jump and high jump and placed in the 100 and 200-meter dash and triple jump, scoring all of the RSI’s girls’ points. On the boys’ side, Jordan Franklin placed third in the 110 hurdles and fourth in the high jump before leaving to Missoula for the music festival. Marcus Hungerford placed fourth in the 400 and 800 runs and RSI newcomer Gui Silva placed in the two hurdle races to help RSI finish in 12th place with 36 points.
Durlgo won the high jump by clearing the bar at 4 feet, 10 inches and the long jump by leaping 15 feet, 1.5 inches. Durglo placed third in the triple jump with a jump of 31 feet, 7.75 inches. While placing at the top in jumping events is nothing new to Durglo – she holds the school record in the triple jump, shares the school record in the high jump and has her sights on the school’s long jump record – she has now added sprinting to her repertoire. Durglo finished in third in the 200-meter dash with a personal best time of 28.6 seconds. Durglo also finished fifth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 13.75 seconds.
Durglo was joined in the 100-meter dash finals by teammate Mackenzie Trudeau. Trudeau didn’t place in the race, but ran a personal best time of 14.1 seconds. With the improvement the freshman has already shown so early in the season, RSI girls’ coach Crystal Pitts expects that Trudeau will start finishing in the top six in the 100-meter dash. Pitts also anticipates Trudeau and teammate LaGlen Mitchell, who just missed out on Saturday’s 100-meter dash final, will have a big impact on the 400-meter relay team.
Franklin ran his best 110 hurdle race of the year, finishing in third with a time of 16.62 seconds. He also placed fourth in the high jump by clearing the bar at 5 feet, 8 inches. RSI boys coach Noelle Decker said that Franklin, who has already cleared 6 feet this season, might have felt rushed and couldn’t concentrate in the high jump because he had to get to Missoula for the music festival.
Hungerford placed fourth in the 400 with a time of 55.14 seconds and the 800 with a time of 2:08.3, which was the same as last week. Decker said that Hungerford should be able to break the 2:05 mark in Libby this weekend as he builds up his stamina.
“We have been focusing on his (Hungerford) 400 splits, but he is lacking some endurance that will just come as the season progresses,” Decker said.
Silva, a Mission senior, placed fifth in 300-meter hurdles with a time of 53.76 seconds and sixth in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 17.10 seconds. Decker said the Brazilian foreign exchange student will continue to improve as he works on his technique.
“He (Silva) has a great deal of natural talent, but hasn’t had any exposure to track and field before this year. I look forward to him being right in the mix come divisionals in both of these races,” Decker said.
With such a young team – the boys only have one senior – success is measured by improvement rather than placing and both the boys and girls teams saw improvement from the first week.
“The work ethic is there; however it is going to take some hard work and patience to get them where they need to be to be competitive. As long as we continue to see improvement each week, I am happy and that’s what it is all about,” Decker said.
A lot of the RSI girls improved from last week with personal bests. Jenny Larsson jumped three inches higher from last week in the high jump and set her new personal best in the event at 4 feet, 9 inches. Victoria Crenshaw had personal best times in the 800 (2:54) and the 1,600 (6:31). Sarah Lucero and Christian Williams had personal best times in the 200-meter dash. Williams also impressed Pitts by finishing her first 1,600-meter run of the season in six minutes, eight seconds. Mariah Cheff had a personal best in the 100-meter dash (14.9 seconds) and Jocelyn Stevens had personal bests in the shot put (26 feet, 3 inches) and the discus (73 feet, 5 inches).
