Monday Run-Day

The thing about the Cascade Top 8 track meet is that it’s quick.

The competition is quick – area Class B and Class C schools submit times and marks, and only the top eight are invited – but the meet itself is a sprint.

“I like how it’s faster than normal track meets because there’s only one heat of everything,” Fort Benton senior Ben Hulme said of Monday’s sparsely attended event at Memorial Stadium.

Hulme took victory in the 110-meter hurdles and the 400 on the track.

“But there’s less time to recover after an event,” Hulme added.

Nobody knew that more acutely than Great Falls Central’s Nolan Donisthorpe, who competed in six events Monday. The senior was in the 100, 200, high jump, long jump and both relays.

“I’m pretty tired,” Donisthorpe said before putting his hands on his knees to catch his breath after the long relay.

“I’m really tired,” he continued, with a laugh.

So how does a senior end up in six events in a three-hour span?

“Coach (Zach Bumgarner) said I was going to do all six events, and I did them. So that’s kind of how it went,” Donisthorpe said with a chuckle.

Donisthorpe leads off Central’s 4x100 relay with Carter Anderson, Trey Ulsh and Reid Nelson, which set a season-best time at 45.40 seconds and won the event Monday. The Mustangs have been the second-quickest group in Class C to date.

Central’s boys weren’t the only ones to set personal records at the 23rd annual Top 8. Winnett-Grass Range saw a pair of school records fall with Jake Iverson’s 4:36.32 mile and Shelby Browning’s 17-foot long jump. Both won their events.

“We have historically had some of our best marks made here at the Top 8,” said Leslie Iverson, the Rams’ coach and Jake’s mother. “We limit (athletes) to one, two, maybe three events depending on their dependability. And we’ve had a lot of success with that.”

The elder Iverson credited her son’s record in part to his closest competition, Jefferson’s AJ Eckmann.

“He has not been pushed all year,” she said. “Any mark he has set, he’s set it on sheer guts because he hasn’t had much competition. It was really nice today that there was somebody running with him.”

North Star’s Tylynn Rettig knocked off her own meet record in the pole vault, clearing 9 feet, 8 inches to break the record of 9-6 she set at last year’s meet. It was the only Top 8 meet record to fall.

Choteau’s girls ran away with the team title, thanks to individual high scorers Hannah King and Payge Durocher, who each amassed 29 points. The two alone would have won the title for the Bulldogs.

But King, who won both the 100 and 300 hurdles and anchored Choteau’s sweep of the relays, was ever-critical. The 300 hurdles was slower than she would have hoped.

“I was really dragging on that last stretch, mostly because I was stuttering,” King said. “I was really trying to finish strong.”

She held off Belt’s Sara Anderson to win it in 49.11.

Donisthorpe was second in the boys’ individual points behind Cut Bank’s Seth Omsberg. The Wolves won the team title narrowly over Central as well.

Hulme, who was third in the 200 in addition to his two wins, was fourth in the individuals. CJI’s Justin May, who placed in four events, was third.