The Montana High School cross country season is gaining steam, and so are the Thompson Falls varsity teams, both of whom competed at the Flathead Invitational meet last week in Kalispell.

Two of the Blue Hawks runners posted personal best times over the 5,000 meter cross that was set up Friday on the grounds at Rebecca Farm.

In what T Falls coach Sarah Naegeli said was a “significantly” stronger field of entrants the Thompson Falls boys team placed 15th out of 20 teams, paced by a personal best time posted by Cael Thilmony. The hard-work Thilmony has put in during the early parts of the season paid off at the Flathead invite when he covered the 5,000 meter course in 18:25, good for 41st place in the boys field of 139 runners.

Meanwhile, the Lady Hawks got a boost from the participation by T Falls junior Ellie Baxter, who also competes in volleyball, and established a new personal best time of 21:44 in her first race with the team.

Baxter’s effort was good for 26th place in a field of 106 girl runners.

Sentinel won the boys team title with a low of 31 points, while T Falls place 15th with 434 points.

The T Falls girls did not have enough competitors to be eligible for the team title, which was won by host Flathead High.

“This was a significantly larger and more competitive race than our last two,” Naegeli said. “The two-lap grass course has some rolling hills to make it interesting, and a nice downhill to the finish”.

Other girls who competed for Thompson Falls varsity included: Faith Palmer, 22:48, good for 43rd place; and Mollie Nichols, 23:28, 47th place.

T Falls boys who placed in the meet included: Brock Ryan who ran 20:01 good for 82nd in what was a tight boys field; JT Taylor, 21:16; Blake Schusterman, 22:33; Wesley Powers, 24:07, and Alek Sweeden, 24:33.

“This was Ellie’s first race for us and she was ready to compete”, Naegeli said. “Cael was in the midst of the tight, jostling and elbowing among the packs of runners and he held his own very well”.

Ryan was competing in his first race of the season and, Naegeli said, looks to be a “great competitor”.

Naegeli said she was pleased with the progress being made by T Falls runners.

“The improvement are what we like to see as they figure out their race spacing,” she said. “It was just an all-around nice day for racing”.

Next up for the Blue Hawks is today’s (Tuesday) Mission Invitational in St. Ignatius, followed by the prestigious Mountain West meet this Saturday. T Falls hosts it only home meet of the season next Tuesday, September 20 beginning at 2 p.m.

Naegeli said the entire team is expected to compete at the Mountain West event. The T Falls Invitational is expected to attract between 400-500 runners. The meet will be held at the River Bend Golf Course outside of Thompson Falls.