Despite a flurry of distractions Saturday, the A.R.M. Invitational in Whitefish was another successful meet for the Bigfork track and field team

Five Bigfork athletes had to take their SATs before they participated in the meet, which meant some of them missed their events altogether and others had to compete immediately after rushing to the field after the test.

"Combine that with the prom being that night, and it was pretty hectic," said Sue Loeffler, Bigfork High School head track and field coach.

She said that other teams were not noticeably missing a great deal of kids to the SATs, but figured that many of them were somewhat impacted by the time conflict. Also drawing away athletes was the State Music Festival.

The Bigfork boys placed eighth with 24 points out of the 16 teams present. Columbia Falls took first with 99 points, Glacier was second with 92 and Thompson Falls earned 72 points for third place.

Senior Keenan Evans led Bigfork with his record-breaking performance in the 100-meter. His time of 10.82 not only earned him first place and beat out his closest competitor, Whitefish's Anto Daoud, by 0.30 of a second, but it also set a new school record. Robin Gratton has held the previous record of 10.86 at Bigfork since the mid-1980s.

"Keenan is running really, really well," Loeffler said. "His starts are going much better, he's in better shape, he's training harder and he's seeing that it's paying off."

Even though Travis Knoll had barely made it to the track before the start of the boys 400-meter relay, he and Evans, Ian Lorang and Derek Minemyer were still able to take second in 44.75, which was just 0.11 of a second behind Whitefish's team.

Junior Ben Sandry had a personal best in the high jump as he cleared 5-10 and earned third place. Glacier's Shane Freese took first at 6-0.

The Bigfork girls earned their fewest points of the season with just 17 and earned eighth place. Glacier's girls won it with 128.5 points, Polson took second with 111.5 and Whitefish was third with 80.

The Valkyries lower than usual team score was partly due to the absence of sprinter Mallery Knoll who was taking her SATs in the morning and wasn't feeling well enough to compete in the afternoon. The Bigfork girls were unable to compete in either of the relay races because Knoll and Quinci Paine were missing from the lineup while taking their tests.

Paine made it to the meet in time to compete in the 400-meter in which she placed third with a time of 1:02.30.

Without Knoll to contend with, Polson sprinter Breanne Kelley and Cutbank's Deni Fitzpatrick swept all four of the short distance races. Kelley won the hurdle races and Fitzpatrick took the 100-meter and 200-meter and broke the meet record in both.

"It wasn't a big deal to have the kids missing in Whitefish," Loeffler said. "I thought that having all those things going on was OK because we just got it all out of the way at once. They all did so well at the Top 10 meet on Tuesday, so I wasn't worried about it." 'see B6)

Bigfork senior Kayla Carlson was present and accounted for, as she made that fact known by breaking the meet record in the 3200-meter. She was clocked in 11:38, which broke Whitefish graduate Lauren Kuennen's 2008 record of 11:46.

Sophomore Amber McDaniel left her mark as well, as she placed in the triple jump for the first time this season with a leap of 31-1, which was good enough for sixth place.

Bigfork has just one meet left before it hosts the District 7B meet May 15.

"The only thing I'm worried about is that the weather hasn't been cooperating so we aren't able to practice some of the things we need to," Loeffler said. "The conditioning is still good, but we haven't been able to practice some of the minute things like hand-offs. Not much you can do about that though."

Saturday the Vikes and Vals will compete in the Archie Roe Invitational track meet in Kalispell. Bigfork was to send athletes to Whitefish's Ken Good Invitational on Tuesday, but that meet was canceled due to winter weather.