Your better, your better, your best.

It’s a simple formula for continued self-improvement taken week by week, and it seems to be working for coach Trenna Ferris and her Thompson Falls Blue Hawk track and field teams.

Led by the versatile talents of junior Addy Deal, who exceeded the standard and qualified for a third State B meet event in the discus, besides winning the javelin, with the girls, and the ever-increasing land-speed being achieved by freshman Alex Newman in the sprints with the boys, the Hawks had another day of improvement in many areas in the Bigfork Invitational Saturday.

Fueled in large part by Newman’s placing efforts in all three sprints (all in personal best times), the Hawk boys scored 25.75 points and finished ninth in the 16-team meet, while the Lady Hawks placed eleventh with 18 team points. In the JV meets at Bigfork, the boys scored 31 points and the girls eight.

Running into the season’s final lap, the Hawks will compete in the Archie Roe Invitational in Kalispell this Saturday in anticipation of the District 7B meet in Eureka the following week.

To say that Ferris was pleased by her team in Bigfork may be an understatement. 

“Wanted to mention that our team had a fantastic day,” she said of the Bigfork meet, pointing to the 44 collective personal bests recorded by her boys and to the 14 by her girls Saturday. “The weather was beautiful and it was just a good day for running, jumping, and throwing.

“Was very proud of the kids,” she added. “Attitudes were positive and we saw a lot of personal improvements. This is a great place to be heading into the post season in a couple weeks.”

Deal did most of the team scoring for the Hawk girls in Bigfork with her first place points in the javelin (where she marked 118-10) and her third place win in the discus (111-3). The discus distance exceeded the State B standard meaning Addy has now qualified for

the State B meet in all three of her events, including the pole vault, an event she didn’t place in Saturday.

Also for the Hawk girls, Aubrey Baxter won fifth place (and the Hawks’ other two team points) in her first meet competing in the long jump, and she and Lexi Franck both ran well in the 200 and 400 meters, with Baxter placing seventh in the 400 and tenth in the 200, and Franck taking tenth and eleventh in those races.

Newman continued his outstanding spring in leading the boys, recording personal best times in the 100 meters (6th in 11.95), 200 (4th in 23.70) and 400 (4th in 53.71), in addition to anchoring the 400 meter relay to fourth place in that race, along with Hank Stone, Carson Kenney and Teagan Dorscher.

Newman also grabbed fifth place in the long jump with a best leap of 19-10 and Stone cleared a lifetime best 11-0 to snag fifth in the pole vault.

Brylon Van-Elswyk won third place in the javelin with a best effort of 147-7 and the 1600 meter relay of Chase Helvey, Weston Block, Brogan Anderson and Evan Lofthus won fifth place in 3:58.89.

Block ran a rapid time of 5:06.88 but missed out on placing against a quality field of 1600 meter runners.