Chiefs bounce back with strong race at Whitefish
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WHITEFISH — The Chiefs' cross country team bounced back from a tough meet at Hamilton last week with a pair of personal bests Saturday as Ronan finished third at Whitefish.
Cody Johnson just missed the top 10 with an 11th-place finish at the meet as he set a new personal best time of 17:23 while Brady Oakland set a new personal best of 17:43 to come in 18th.
“I thought the boys ran very well this week. We had several PRs, which is always good,” Ronan coach Gale Decker said. “Finishing third behind Whitefish and Columbia Falls is not bad at all. Both of those teams should be in the top five at state. We just had a good running day. A much better day than we had in Hamilton a week ago.”
The good showing comes a week after the team learned that they will have to go the remainder of the season without one of their top runners, Justin Dusty Bull, who’s season ended with a stress fracture in his foot.
“I think part of our success this week was having another week to get over the injury to Justin. We have had time to move past it and adjust mentally,” Decker said.
Along with the personal records by Johnson and Oakland, Kevin Wroblewski ran a 17:32 to finish 13th, Jordan Franklin finished in 18:05 to come in 25th and Danny Romero was 30th at 18:23.
For a Chiefs team still trying to find itself before the final two races of the season, the showing in Whitefish is a good sign.
“I think we still have a chance to do well before it’s all done,” Decker said. “I want to see us peak at the state meet. It would be great to finish in the top three at the conference meet, but we need to be our best at state.”
The Maidens continued to struggle this week as they finished in last place despite strong performances from their top two runners.
Ashley Grandchamp turned in a time of 21:34 and finished 13th to lead the Maidens while Jade Grey set a new personal record with a time of 22:25 to finish 24th.
“Ashley and Jade ran very well for us again but we still can’t find those third, fourth and fifth runners that we need,” Decker said. We are pretty much out of the running in the team race on the girls’ side. We just don’t have the depth we need to compete.”
Kiana Howell ran a 24:42 to finish 38th for the Maidens, Rachel Hardy was 44th at 25:28 and Christen Falcon finished 49th at 27:14.
Both teams will be in action at Libby Saturday as they compete in the Northwest Conference Class A Championships.
