Girls compete at State C

The 2017 Girls Class C State Track Meet ran in conjunction with the Class A State meet last Friday and Saturday.

Fort Benton won the Class C meet with a total of 72 points. Manhattan Christian took second with 56.33 and Twin Bridges took third with 46 points. Seeley-Swan and Westby-Grenora tied for fourth with 32.

Saco junior Bailey Funk was the only local athlete to score points at the girls C meet, tying for fourth in pole vault while scoring 2.33. The winner of the event was Cera Strumpfer of Seeley-Swan who cleared 9-0.

“I think one of her goals was to place at state and she was just missing out on 9-0,” Saco Head Coach Barry Malone said. “If she could’ve gotten 9-0, she would’ve gotten second. All of her vaults up to 8-6 were clean and at 9-0 she was catching it with her hip as she was going over.”

Funk also took seventh in triple jump, with a distance of 33-0 ¼. She also placed fifteenth in long jump with a mark of 15-0.

“She started with a couple of long jumps right at 15 but she had just missed out of the finals,” Coach Malone said. “She had a really nice jump in triple jump the next day right at 33 feet which put her right into the finals and put her in sixth place until a Drummond girl got a 34 and knocked her into seventh.”

Whitewater Senior Kayleigh Cummings took ninth in shot put with a throw of 33-6, a few inches from her personal best.

“She had a really good throw,” Coach Wasson said noting that her mark was on her first throw. “On her second trial throw, she really flung it out there but stepped over the toe board and scratched and that probably was a placer.”

Coach Wasson shared her thoughts on Cummings graduating this year.

“You never want to see kids like that leave because they are really important leaders in your school and in athletics,” Coach Wasson said. “It’s hard to let them go but you can’t hold on to them forever.”

Saco junior Sydney Zeller took twelfth in high jump after clearing 4-8.

“She cleared the first two heights of 4-6 and 4-8 but struggled with 4-10 but as I tell the kids, if you can clear the opening height and get past some of the other kids, you deserve to be there and she definitely did,” Coach Malone said.

Zeller also took twenty-first in long jump with a leap of 13-10.

Dodson Freshman Christina Jaynes placed eighteenth in shot put with a throw of 30-6.