It was a great week for Panther sports. All three squads shone in post-season play, paving the way to Divisionals this week for track and field and State for golf and tennis.
Golf
The golf team has had a great first year under the direction of Head Coach Anna DeMars — and for the first time in school history, the boys’ team brought home a Divisional trophy. Another first: The Lady Panthers have an individual divisional champion. Celi Chapman took the trophy at Bigfork with a score of 82; her closest competition came in 95.
The Panther boys team placed second overall with a score of 364, behind Loyola Sacred Heart’s 337. Rounding out the top four were Anaconda, at 373, and Lincoln County at 398.
Coach DeMars said that the boys were not playing their best in the early going, but they stepped it up on the back nine to bring home the trophy. Preston Field led the Panthers with an 81, good for third place individually. Luke Eckmann shot 90, Marcus Lee 92, Logan Gilmore 101, and Bryce Shields 116.
For the girls, Jessie Harris shot a 123 and Izzy Morris 149.
The boys’ team and Chapman were set to play in the State Class B meet at Eagle Rock golf course in the Billings/Shepherd area on Tuesday and Wednesday. Results will be in next week’s Monitor.
Tennis
Three of four Panther girls qualified for State in Missoula starting May 20. Sam Zody and Rita Buffa started out with two wins each and then had to play each other. Zody won that match, then went on to win the Divisional title. Rita Buffa won her loser-out match and won again to take third — this time besting teammate Morgan Knickerbocker, whose fourth-place finish qualified her for State, as well.
Joelle Quigley had a hard first day or she might have also qualified. She lost her first match, then had to make a long comeback, playing three more matches that day. She battled back with two wins before losing the fourth match and being eliminated.
Track and field
The girls’ and boys’ track teams both took second place at the District 5B track meet in Belgrade last Saturday. On a sunny day with hardly any wind it was a great day to watch track and enjoy the efforts that the kids put forth to make Jefferson High School proud.
Manhattan won the girls’ title with 138.66 points. Jefferson was right behind with 134 points, followed by Sweet Grass County at 107, Three Forks at 66.83, Broadwater at 48.5, and Whitehall at 22. The top six individual placers in each event will travel to Laurel this Thursday for the Southern Division meet; the top eight there will move on to State on May 28 and 29 in Laurel.
A highlight of the District meet was the 4×100 relay team of Hailee Stiles, MacKenzie Layng, Grace Alexander and Clare Ronayne, which set a new JHS record, their time of 51.08 just beating the 51.53 set in 2018 by Stiles, Hayden Henschel, Callie Warfle and Ashley Pankratz. The same squad also took first in the 4×400; their time of 4:14.91 was almost six seconds faster than the second-place team.
Among other qualifiers, Ronayne took second in the 100 in 12.89 and second in the 200 in 26.79, both personal bests for the freshman speedster. Grace Alexander took second in the 300 hurdles in 48.77 and second in the 100 hurdles in 16.47, a personal best this year.
Kai Tayler took second in the shot put at 31’1.50”, and won the discus with a throw of 97’5”. Haleigh Henschel took sixth in the shot put at 27’1.50”, a personal best for her; Emma McCauley had a personal record in the high jump, taking third at 4’10”, and took second in the pole vault at 8’, fourth in the long jump with a personal best of 15’ 8.75”, and first in the triple jump at 34’ 05”, another personal best.
Rachel Van Blaricom took third in the pole vault at 7’. Stiles was fourth in the high jump at 4’ 10”, second in the long jump at 15’ 10”, and fourth in the triple jump 30’ 11.5”. Sophomore Brook Eveland did not place in the top six but did have a personal best in the 1600 of 6:19.65.
The JHS boys were competing without speedster Joey Visser, who was nursing a sore muscle. Visser had already qualified for State in many events during the regular season. And the Panthers still qualified a lot of athletes for Division.
Jack Johnson ran his best time of the year, 2:15.61 in the 800 but got edged by .05 of a second for sixth. Braden Morris had a great day, taking first in the 110 hurdles in 15.66, first in the 300 hurdles in 40.72, a personal best, first in the javelin with another personal record of 158’.09”, and first in the triple jump at 40’8.75”.
Dylan Root took second in the 300 hurdles in 42.35, and second in the high jump at 5’6” a personal best. Wade Rykal won the shot put at 45’1” and took second in the discus at 126’05”. Abram Williams took third in the shot put at 38’; Dalton Noble was sixth in the shot put at 36’7”; Jace Oxarart took fourth in the Javelin with a personal record of 133’3”; and Payden Coats tied for fifth in the high jump at 5’2”, a personal record for him. Riley Stock took second in the pole vault with a personal best of 9’6” and sixth in the long jump at 17’ 6.5”. Luke Strizich was third in the long jump at 18’10”, another personal best.
Running without Visser, the 4×100 relay team of Morris, Root, Michael Emter and Riley Stock still took second in 46.12, 4x 400 relay team of Stock, Emter, Root and Rutger Shultz likewise took second in 3:41.64.
Manhattan won the boys’ meet with 164.5 points. Jefferson followed with 134, then Sweet Grass County at 107, Three Forks at 67.33, Broadwater at 48, and Whitehall at 22.
