As the state cross country championships get closer every day, the Thompson Falls harriers are working to get everyone healthy as they look for positive results ahead.

They got some solid performances this past week during their competition at the Whitefish XC Invitational, including a solid top-10 performance from senior Faith Palmer, who placed eighth in Whitefish out of a field of 76 runners.

She was joined in the top 20 by freshman teammate Aubrey Baxter, who was 16th.

In the men’s competition, senior Cael Thilmony was a solid 24th out of 76 competitors after battling an ailment for the past week.

The meet attracted runners from 13 regional teams. Flathead High won the women’s team competition with a score of 39, just ahead of second place Glacier High, also of Kalispell.

T Falls did not have enough runners to compete for the women’s team title.

On the men’s side, Flathead and Glacier also finished 1-2 in the team chase, while T Falls, which was able to put together an eligible contingent of runners, was 11th.

Several runners on both the T Falls men’s and women’s teams had personal or season best times, an encouraging sign as postseason races draw near, said T Falls cross country coach Sarah Naegeli.

“Faith had a great PR (personal record) time and moved her way up the Class B ranks,” Naegeli said. “It was another great PR for Evalyn Edwards (25:59 over the 3.1 mile course) by about two minutes, and Jaden Bewick beat her PR by about one minute”

Palmer covered the course in 20:13, while Baxter ran a season best time of 21:19. Peighton Kenney also had a good run with a season best time of 23:51.

In the men’s races, Thilmony had a PR time of 17:48 despite being home several days with an ailment that is going around most area schools. Brock Ryan ran a promising 20:12 while eighth grader Weston Block was right behind Ryan with a 20:14 time in his first race on the varsity team.

Blake Shusterman also had a season best time of 20:52 for the Blue Hawks, while another 8th grader, Evan Lofhus, also running his first high school race, clocked a 21:32.

Two other T Falls men had personal bests, including Tuff Ryder with a time of 22:01, and Sean Nowlan, who crossed the finish line at 23:99. Jacob Molina finished the race with a time of 24:28.

Naegeli said the team moved up three eighth grade runners for the Whitefish race to fill out the teams and was pleased with their results.

“They raced quite well”, she said. “Great times by all and strong races. We are happy to have everyone feeling better and recovered from Homecoming week. Now for a weekend off, as we head into the last meets of the season. Polson is next weekend, followed by the Western B/C meet.”

Naegeli said she was heading out this past weekend for her first marathon run, which she “nervously” anticipated.

Plains and T Falls runners will be in Polson this Saturday for the Mission Shadow meet.