Dozens of student athletes were chomping at the bit to compete last Saturday in Frenchtown, but the weather did not cooperate. The decision was made to cancel the track meet for the students’ safety.

“I’ve been around the sport for over 30 years; and, this is the first meet that I’ve ever been to where the conditions were so bad that the teams packed up and went home,” Plains head coach Tony Banovich said. “[It was] kind of a tough way to kick off the season.”

Despite a steady, but light dose of rain, most of the events began as scheduled. Soon enough however, the gloomy grey looming overheard would literally rain on the track parade.

Before the meet was called off, several Sanders County athletes did receive marks.

For Plains, Franky Winebrenner had a throw of 26’ 4” in the Varsity Shot Put. For the freshman, Courtney Roth leapt 24’ 9 1/2” in the triple jump. Kaleb Beech won his heat of the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 18.80 seconds and Nicole Rehbein won her heat of the 100-meter dash in 13.07.

Banovich was impressived with both Winebrenner and Rehbein’s performances given the torrid weather conditions at the time they were competing.

For Thompson Falls, Hope Reid and Angie Padden were in the midst of impressive performances when things were called off, according to Lady Hawk head coach Randy Symon. Although final results were never made available, Reid was sitting high in the standing in both the high jump and 100-meter hurdles and Padden had won her heat of the 100-meter hurdles in the freshman category.

There is still a possibility that Frenchtown will try to host the event again on Saturday as they do not have another scheduled meet, however, many of the teams who attended the meet last weekend do.

Both Plains and Thompson Falls are scheduled to attend the time trials in Columbia Falls this Saturday.