LHS harriers wrap up regular season with strong showing at Powell

The Lovell High School cross country teams traveled to Powell on Thursday to race at the Powell Golf Club east of Powell.

“The weather was warmer than expected, which made the last mile challenging for many runners, but several athletes still hit personal bests,” Lovell coach Caleb Sanders noted.

Girls results

Once again, Elana Schilthuis led the Lovell girls, placing 19th in the varsity race with an outstanding personal record of 21:00. Her time was 33 seconds faster than her previous best, and Sanders said it was one of the fastest girls 5K times in Lovell history, which likely put her in the top five all time.

“She wanted to make our all-time leaderboard,” Coach Sanders said. “She missed it by just 18 seconds, but with the heat, that was an amazing performance. It’s the fastest time we’ve had on the girls side in about a decade.”

Caylee Herman finished 25th in the JV race with a time of 24:43, followed by Candace Walker in 28th at 26:20. Toree Herman ran an overall personal best of 27:32 to place 38th, and Atlee Sanders earned a season PR of 28:40 for 44th place.

Boys results

For the boys, David Durfee once again led the Bulldogs with a strong time of 17:50, finishing 18th in the varsity race.

“David’s been our top runner all season and continues to do an excellent job,” Coach Sanders said.

Several Lovell runners also earned personal records this week. Oscar Garcia, a freshman, ran a personal best time of 19:51, placing 54th in varsity and ranking third among Lovell’s 15 runners. Owen Hill also ran his fastest time of the season at 19:18, placing 45th in varsity. Grant Rose (21:15) and Rick Jensen (21:42) each earned overall personal bests in the JV race. Jensen was able to achieve his season goal of breaking 22 minutes.

Other varsity results: Jacob Thomas 19:51.81, Sam Mayes 20:19, Isaac Sanders 20:27.

Other JV results: Ethan Hendershot 21:03, 22nd; Jaxen Clark 21:12, 24th; Hudsen Mickelson 21:34, 31st; Jay Mayes 22:25, 46th; Zander Stahl 23:10, 48th; Taevan Henton 26:17, 60th; and Gage Pillow 27:30, 61st.

The entire Bulldog team will travel to Lander today (Thursday) for the 3A West Regional meet.

“We’ve already run this course, so our goal is to beat our previous times,” Sanders said. “It’ll be cooler this week, which should help.”

The results at Regionals will also determine which seven boys will officially qualify for State, along with the alternate. The state runners will be based on their regional performance.

“We’ll take the athletes who are performing their best right now, the ones who are ready for the biggest race of the season,” Sanders said of the state selections.

Action in Lander will begin at 1 p.m. with the varsity girls race, followed by the varsity boys at 1:45. The races will be held at the Lander Community & Convention Center and Golf Course.