Jace Page, Isabelle Dawe, and Noah Herrera give outstanding performances at Manhattan Christian Track Invite
Cavan Visser nabs two PR's, Christian Triemstra amazes (again), Gaige Taylor can leap tall buildings, and Gardiner's Allisyn Dentinger and West Yellowstone Abrams Clark are the future.
By: Jeff Schlapp
The sun was shining, and the weather warmed up on Saturday for the Manhattan Christian Track Invitational in Belgrade. The warmer weather (last week, it hailed and snowed in Belgrade) seemed to agree with the athletes, as they turned in fantastic performances.
Manhattan (122 points) edged out Manhattan Christian for first place (117 points) in the boys' division, with Joliet a distant third (84 points).
In the girls' division, the battle for first place was as close as teams could be. Manhattan took team honors (136 points) over Broadwater (134.5), and Manhattan Christian took third place (67.33), holding off Ennis (60.33).
The Lady Eagles certainly would have scored more as a team, but Bella Cash-Rich suffered a knee injury while running in the 300m Hurdles (last week, she timed a PR) after placing third in the 110m Hurdles on Saturday.
Although we don’t typically cover West Yellowstone High School, we took special note of freshman Abrams Clark, who entered the High Jump and 400m race.
He didn’t win.
He did improve from his first varsity event last week by two seconds in the 400m race and earned 12th place (he got 18th last week during the Gallatin Valley Invite). He brought home PRs in both events.
It’s not how you finish when you're a freshman; it's about the effort you give. Abrams showed he has a bright future.
As does Gardiner Bruin eighth grader Allisyn Dentinger.
She was entered in four events for the Lady Bruins: the Javelin Toss, Long Jump, 200m, and 400m race. Dentinger also didn’t win, but she had PRs at three of her events and had fun.
When juinors track stars Maggie Darr and Ciella White graduate, Dentinger will be counted on to help lead a young Lady Bruin track team consisting of fellow eighth grader Avery Klein, and current freshman Gracie Gibbs and Kylie Tuning.
Dentinger and Clark were important figures on Saturday despite not winning their events. They put on their school colors and tried their best.
Conversley, I witnessed a young boy grow increasingly frustrated with his day, leading him to tell his coach he was dropping an event. He was young and not considered a key member of his track team, and his coach inexplicably just walked away without saying a word. The youngster then went and sat by himself.
I hope the coach talked to the young man later and shared some encouraging words.
Effort. Sometimes its not as simple as putting one foot in front of the other.
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