Polson, RSI girls rock tournament
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MISSOULA – The Lady Pirate track team capped off a successful season by capturing a fourth place score of 48 at the Class A state meet at Missoula County Stadium last weekend. Polson senior Mesa Starkey led her team with a second place finish in the 3,200 with a time of 11:50.50.
“Mesa had the best finish of any of our girls at state,” head coach Bob Gunderson said. “She finished second in the 3200-meter for the second year in a row.”
“The pace was slow and challenging,” Starkey said. “It’s good because you can hold back, but it was a mind game. There were a lot of girls packed up front.”
“We had a pretty young team this year and from the beginning a lot of girls stepped up,” she added.
Claudia Hewston was one of those girls. She finished third in the 1,600 with a time of 5:23.08, while Starkey fell behind by just a second to finish fourth with a time of 5:24.00. Hewston also finished fourth in the 800, crossing the line with a time of 2:20.57.
“Claudia Hewston is one of the best competitors I have ever seen in all my years of coaching track,” Gunderson said. “ She had personal records in the 800-meter, 1,600-meter, and ran her best time ever on the 4 by 400-meter relay.”
Teammate Anna DiGiallonardo brought home some hardware after finishing third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.36. She also finished fourth in the 100 with a time of 12.90.
Senior Breanne Kelley finished off a successful career at Polson, with a third place finish in the 100 hurdles (15.78). Kelley also took fifth in the 300 hurdles with a time of 47.63, and fifth in the 400.
“I peaked at state and pretty much ran the best times during trials and finals. My goal for state was to place in every event I was in,” Kelley said. The talented athlete will play volleyball this fall for the University of Montana Western.
“Breanne had season bests in the 100 and 400-meter hurdles,” Gunderson said. “She placed in 5 events at the state meet bringing her total to 19 medals over her 4 year high school career.”
“Breanne has competed in 51 meets for Polson High School over 4 years,” he added. “During that period she has run in over 250 individual races. You can count on one hand the number of times she failed to score points during that time period.”
Former Lady Pirate Kasey Harwood’s 2004 state record of 44.1 for the 300 hurdle was broken by Corvallis senior Paige Squire, who crossed the line with a time of 43.76.
The Lady Pirate 1,600 relay team clinched a fourth place victory after finishing the race with a time of 4:08.44, while the 400 relay team finished fifth at the meet.
The RSI team finished the meet in ninth place with 20.5 points. Adessa Durglo topped off her final track season with a handful of impressive performances that brought home hardware for the senior. Durglo’s long jump of 17 feet, 6.75 inches was the best of the day, earning her the gold medal.
“It’s been a good season and I am glad I peaked at the right time and all my hard work finally paid off,” she said.
Durglo also took third in the high jump, clearing 5 feet, 2 inches, and fourth in the triple jump, leaping 34 feet 11.5 inches.
“On Saturday Adessa’s sore foot had caught up to her with all of the jumping and she had to settle for 4th place in the triple jump, her best event,” head coach Crystal Pitts said.
Teammate Jenny Larsson’s height of 5 feet even in the high jump tied her with Eva Krasowski of Billings Central and Chancey Auge of Libby.
RSI boys finished the meet with a score of 24 to take ninth place. RSI’s Jalen Bell brought home his first state silver medal, in his first year on the track team. Bell clinched a second place victory in the triple jump after leaping 43 feet, 6.5 inches.
Jordan Franklin battled Whitefish’s Drew Galbraith all morning on the high jump, which turned into a 20 jump off marathon. The two went back and forth matching jumps, with Galbraith finally coming out on top with the first place finish, while Franklin tied with three other athletes who all cleared 6 feet for second.
“The high jump has been my event since the 6th grade when I broke a school record and jumped 6 feet,” Franklin said. “My freshman year of high school I broke my ankle playing basketball and I’ve been working hard to get to this point again.”
“Not the way he wanted to end his career or what he expected but what a great thing to watch,” Pitts said.
Teammate Eric Malmquist took sixth in the 200 after finishing with a time of 23.59.
RSI’s 400 relay team took fourth at the meet, crossing the line at the 44.56 second mark. Pitts said the 400-meter relay team broke their own school record for the third time in the trial heat on Friday at the meet, clocking 43.98.
“Out of 12 opportunities to run the 400 relay with these four boys this season they only got to run together a total of four times because of injury and school activities,” Pitts said. “Of the four times this relay team got to run together they set a school record three times.”
The 1,600 relay team came in fourth with a time of 3:31.03.
“Eric Malmquist, Riley Dennis, Austin Durglo and Marcus Hungerford need to run three hundredths of a second faster to claim the 1,600-meter relay record, but their time of 3.31.03 did earn them a trip to the podium for fourth place medals which was a great way to cap their state track meet,” Pitts said.
For the Polson boys’ track team, their lone score came from Zion Lee in the pole vault, to give the team a score of 1.5. Lee tied for fifth place with Jayme Kely of Sidney, with both matching the height of 12 feet 6 inches.
“The good thing about the Pirates is that they are a young team,” Gunderson said. “With only a couple of seniors on this year’s team next year should see a lot of improvement.”
