Townsend Cross Country Update
Author: MT43 News Sports Reporter
Townsend Cross Country Update
Melissa Meissner
Saturday, September 9th was a beautiful day, especially if you were in Bozeman on the Bridger Creek Golf Course for the Bozeman XC Invitational.
It was an exciting day of racing with the Neil siblings from Bozeman winning both Varsity races in spectacular fashion. Freshman Kylee won the ladies' race in a photo finish, while her older brother Nathan set the course record in the men’s race.
Individual success in cross country is measured so much by your times: improvement on a particular course, recording your best time over a season, or running your fastest time over your career. These milestones are more rewarding than where you place in the pack and can have various factors: course topography, course conditions, weather conditions, size of pack, speed of the pack, etc.
Bozeman’s race was the Bulldog's third of the season and a fast one with lots of runners from 41 schools (16AA, 7A, 8B, 6C, and 3 Wyoming) but the Townsend Bulldogs were up for the task. Thirteen of our 16 runners had their season-best time (SR), while 6 of those were overall personal best times (PR) at this distance of 5 kilometers.
The Junior Varsity Girls were up first with 247 ladies taking to the undulating course, a one-loop that starts by edging holes 11-13 before crossing over McIlhattan Road and finishing by traversing the length of holes 14 and 18 each twice. Scarlett McDaniel (26:46) led the way for the Bulldogs placing 123rd, while Grace Kroeger (29:35 SR) was 183rd, Melania Lambott (30:04 SR) was 193rd and Fiona Nelson (38:22) was 245th.
Next up was the largest field of the day with 314 Junior Varsity Men. Aidan Easter (20:42; improving from last year by 21 seconds) came across the line first for the Bulldogs in 104th, followed by Kaden Bruins (21:13 SR; an amazing improvement of 2:42 over his 2021 Bozeman time) in 135th, Rylan Hoveland (21:16 PR) in 139th, Ross McDonald (22:35 SR) in 195th, Wyatt Cooker (26:13 SR) in 290th, Luke Tullos (26:13 PR) in 291st, and Keaton Cavasos (26:49 SR; a remarkable improvement of 5:18 over last year’s Bozeman time) in 296th. As a team, the JV men placed 20th.
The Varsity Ladies took the course next with a field of 208 contenders. Recovering from a fall at approximately 1 mile into the 3.1-mile race, Kyla Meissner ran her personal best time of 20:41 to place 35th. Kaelyn Sangray improved her Bozeman time from 2022 by almost two minutes to clock her personal 5K record of 21:54 finishing in 92nd. Abby Wicken’s time of 24:11 gave her a 170th finish.
The 251 Men’s Varsity runners were after that. Nolan Flynn shortened his Bozeman course time from 2022 by over a minute for his overall best 5K time of 17:50 placing 90th. Connor Lamb also ran in a personal best time of 19:58 to come in 183rd place. Super fast Bulldogs!
Townsend also has a robust middle school running program including grades 6-8, which took to the course for their second meet. Middle school hoofers run different distances each week depending on how the home course can alter the route while keeping the starting and finishing lines in a relatively same position. In Bozeman, that meant a race of 2300 meters.
The Lady Bulldogs finished as follows: Tana Santi (9:44) in 31st, Kensley Sangray (9:59) in 39th, Kathryn Six (10:26) in 56th, Addi Mosher (10:45) in 61st, Courtney Webber (11:02) in 66th, Lydia Brakefield (11:10) in 71st, Madison Vogl (12:46) in 86th, Anna Busscher (13:04) in 89th, Ella Tullos (14:44) in 94th, Kaedyn Budde (15:57) in 97th, and Aspen Bantz (16:00) in 98th. They finished in a fifth-place tie as a team with 127 points. The boys finished in 7th as a team with their times as follows: Trey Coker (9:00) in 46th, Sawyer Pitman (9:41) in 63rd, Dylan Pitman (10:52) in 73rd, Everett Kirksey (11:26) in 78th, Jayden Flynn (13:27) in 88th.
These Broadwater Bulldogs are getting faster with each meet this season and are certainly exciting to watch. The next two meets will be Friday, September 15th in Butte at the Highland View Gold Course and the biggest meet of the season, the Mountain West Classic in Missoula featuring 80+ schools from the three-state region. Hope to see you there!
