Outside of an unfortunate injury to one of her best runners, Thompson Falls coach Sarah Naegeli said the Hawks had a great running time at the Whitefish Invitational Sept. 29.

Led by Weston Block and Caleb McCray, who won fifth and tenth place, respectively in the boys race, a total of seven Thompson Falls harriers competed in Whitefish.

“It was kind of a relaxed race, on a nice soft course with some rolling hills,” Naegeli said. “It was considerably cooler and cloudier than we've run in. Great for racing, cool for watching!”

The only un-cool thing that happened for the Hawks was the fact that promising sophomore Audrey Fairbank tweaked her knee about two miles into the girls varsity race and dropped out at that point.

Running solo for the Hawk girls, senior Aubrey Baxter placed 28th in 23:03.1.

Completing the boys team’s efforts, Nathan Baxter timed out in 19:33.7, Wyatt Clawson 22:19.1, Zachary Botz 25:11.4 and eighth grader Alec Cribbs 26:21.5.

Naegeli said Block, McCray and Baxter all ran season-best times in Whitefish, adding that it was the first time this season that the Hawk boys fielded a full scoring team for a meet.

The Hawks will complete regular season action participating in the Mission Shadow Duals in Pablo Saturday, their final tuneup before the Western B meet in Thompson Falls Oct. 15.

Naegeli said she is surprised how quickly the season this season has gone. “It's hard to believe we're approaching the end of the season,” she said. “Polson/Pablo on Saturday, Western B/C on the 15th, and then state, in Billings on the 24th. We'll be working on changing those season best times to PRs over the next few weeks.”

Naegeli said Fairbank and Baxter plan on sitting out the Pablo meet and will not race again until the divisional meet in Thompson Falls.