In the kingdom of Class AA girls' track in Montana, you have your royalty (Kalispell, Bozeman) and you've got your serfs (everyone else).
Sure, a Helena or a Billings or, this spring, even a Missoula Big Sky might stretch a few rungs up the social ladder and throw a scare into the top two. But you can bet your bippy by the end of the state meet in Helena on May 24, the remarkably deep Bravettes and the particularly fast Hawks will be the last two standing.
"That's pretty good," allowed Jerry Boschee, who took over the reins at Kalispell last year after long-time mentor Joe McKay retired. "Our strength was our depth last year. We placed in every event but long jump."
The Bravettes should have little trouble in their own division. They shattered the Western AA record last May with 269 points. No one else scored 80.
It's a different story in the Western AA boys' race. Dan Hodge's Kalispell Braves won their third straight state crown a year ago and should be in the running for a fourth. But based on sheer speed, Helena Capital probably lugs the favorite's yoke out of the blocks.
The Kalispell girls seem to have it all - depth, senior leadership and prodigious talent.
What other Montana team has entered a track season boasting a national champion? And Zoe Nelson is only a sophomore. She won the Footlocker cross-country championships in December after breezing to her second straight state cross-country crown in October.
The core of the Bravettes is formed by five seniors - Halladay Quist, Catie Holliday, Becky O'Neil, Jyndia Schaible and Katie Regier.
"We have a great senior class, a great group of leaders both in what they do and what they say," Boschee said.
Quist won the state triple jump title as a sophomore and scored 19 points last May at state, including seconds in triple jump and the 100-meter hurdles. Holliday was Kalispell's lone state champion in 2002, topping the field in javelin and also placing in high jump. O'Neil also has a state title under her belt, in discus as a sophomore. She was second in shot put last spring.
Krista Jimenez, the state runner-up in the 300 hurdles, bolsters the junior class after scoring 15 points at state last year. Classmates Larissa Harwood, a hurdler, and sprinter Brittany Berger, who was injured much of last season, figure heavily into the Bravettes' plans.
Nelson placed second in the 1,600 and 3,200 last year at state in the wake of Great Falls Russell senior Heidi Lane's record-bashing meet. Destined to be known as one of the state's all-time greats, Nelson should have little competition this spring and has already been invited to the prestigious Golden West Invitational in California in June.
As impressive as Nelson was her freshman season, Boschee said the Bravettes wouldn't have won the state title without another frosh, sprinter Cricket Johnston. Johnston ended the season with top-three finishes in all three sprints at state.
"From the beginning of the season to where she ended up was kind of 'wow,' " Boschee said.
Big Sky girls scored just 10 points at the state meet and finished 12th out of 13 teams. But Dan Nile's Eagles may be the most improved AA team and rate as decisive favorites in Missoula. The latter is due both to a strong group of sophomores and juniors and a couple of huge-impact losses at the other two Garden City schools.
Sentinel's Lea Feasline, one of the state's best all-around athletes, moved to Illinois last summer after top-three finishes at state in shot put and discus. Hellgate senior Kelsey Cooley, who won the state high jump crown and took third in triple jump as a junior, sustained a torn ligament in her knee during basketball and is out for the spring after undergoing surgery on March 10.
Nile has three individual place-winners back from state on his girls' team, and a bundle of youngsters knocking on the door. Senior javelin thrower Megan Zentgraf took fourth at state last season and had a best of 127 feet with the new, modified javelin. Senior Jenna Mastalir cleared 10-6 in pole vault and finished fifth, while junior Brenn Stacey shared sixth place in high jump.
Sprinter Melissa Paske, a senior now, anchored an all-underclass sprint relay squad that finished fourth at state. Nile expects big things from his speed crew - Paske, junior quarter-miler Traci Cebulla, and sophomores Ashley Wamsley, K.C. Dahlgren and Kailey Hayes.
Dahlgren will also team with Mastalir as perhaps the conference's best 1-2 punch in pole vault. Stacey, Dahlgren and yet another sophomore, Rachel Hansen, have all cleared 5 feet in high jump, and Hansen leads the Eagles in the horizontal jumps as well.
Sophomore Kim Tritz swept city titles in cross country, the 1,600 and the 3,200 titles as a freshman. Illness slowed her at the Western AA divisionals.
Feasline's departure left the Sentinel with just one girl who qualified for state last year - sprinter Caitlin MacMillen. As a sophomore, MacMillen scored points at the divisional meet in both the 200 and 400.
Spartan coach Gary Little has high hopes for a handful of other returning point-winners, including seniors Danni Lyons and Sarah Mattina, as well as junior Lindsey Koppen. Lyons threw the javelin 120 feet last spring. Mattina and Koppen will help Sentinel both on the track and in the jumps.
Hellgate will field a largely untested girls' team in Cooley's absence. Gone are past state place-winners Katie Farago (javelin), as well as Andrea Hall and Laura Winstead (pole vault). That leaves junior high jumper Libby Zinke as the only Knight to make the victory stand for veteran coach Ron Jones.
Hellgate did emerge with a strong distance crew during cross-country season, finishing fourth behind the top-10 finishes of sophomore Whitney Wilson and senior Laura Zschaechner. Senior Kaci Briggeman qualified for state in the 800 last spring.
If all else fails for Hodge and the Kalispell boys (and it hasn't), there'll always be distance runners and lots and lots of bodies. The Braves lost a chunk after their third state title in a row last year when Troy Wassink, Kurt Michels, Tanner Rauk and Travis Lynch received their diplomas. The four of them scored 68 of Kalispell's 104fi points.
Still, they'll be in the running for a four-peat, something that hasn't been accomplished by a AA boys' team since Billings West did it in 1984-87.
Missoula County won titles the first five years Class AA was created (1954-58) after copping the Class A crown in 1953. The Spartans were also state champs the four years before and during World War II - state meets weren't held from 1943-45 - and the two years after. Other streaks in Montana's largest classification included four in a row by Butte Public (1935-38) and five by Gallatin County (1910-14).
To climb to those historic levels, the Braves will rely on the likes of distance runners Caleb Ambrose and Matt Parker, sprinters Lex Hilliard and Brandon Dwyer, javelin thrower Bryce Jahner, and more than 100 other boys Hodge has out.
"I honestly know very little right now," Hodge said last week, in the midst of the school's week-long spring break. "We haven't done anything. We're trying to have practice, but we've got 108 kids out and we're getting maybe 20, 22 this week."
He'll learn more when the Braves open at home against Great Falls Russell on Friday. Ambrose and Parker finished second and third behind Michels at state last year in the 3,200, and Ambrose was third in the 1,600. Jahner was runner-up in javelin as a sophomore and fourth last year. Hilliard has been among the best sprinters in Montana for a couple of years. Chris Gloschat, fifth in discus at state, was injured in football and may not be back to full strength until midseason.
Hodge said the Braves will fill in the blanks with the likes of jumper James Hatton, shot putter John Danielson, high jumper Chris Lougheed, pole vaulter Dan Thies and hurdlers Tony Murphy and Ryan Ross. Eric Anderson should help Hilliard and Dwyer fill out a speedy sprint corps.
Hellgate boys edged Sentinel and Big Sky by four points for the city title a year ago, and the Knights rate as early favorites to do it again. That's based on the return of triple jumper Travis Monroe, who posted a personal-best 43 feet, 8 inches at state to take third place as a junior, and on runners such Joe Thompson, Mike Molloy, Michael Lowney and Brian Furey. They played parts on relay teams that placed fourth (400) and fifth (1,600) at state.
Furey is a 13-foot pole vaulter, while Lowney returns as one of the top 800 men in Western AA. Senior John Babbitt placed at state in shot put and could challenge in javelin. The corps of throwers should be bolstered by Andrew Fife, Jeff Hathaway, Dylan Tinnell and Jason Hurd.
Three seniors form the nucleus of Nile's boys' team at Big Sky, whose primary loss was sprinter Jake Carr, the fifth-place finisher in the 100 at state. CeeJay Brown took fifth at the state cross-country meet and swept the 1,600 and 3,200 at last year's city meet. Greg Burfeind will rack up points in the 400, 800 and long relay for the Eagles. Jerod Pierce, an all-state cornerback during the football season, is also a key cog in the sprints.
Junior Trevor Wamsley is Nile's do-everything man, with point potential in the hurdles, relays, javelin and high jump. Senior Adam Lane just missed making it to state in the 300 hurdles last May.
Junior Corey Merrill leads the weight crew at Big Sky, and Nile is excited about the potential of sophomore jumpers Tyler and Jace Palmer.
As a junior, Sentinel's Charlie Tribe saved his first 14-foot pole vault for the state meet, placing second behind Helena's Patrick Sandiland, who was also a junior and also cleared 14-0. Tribe's Spartan teammate, Levi Zell, won the city pole vault title.
The Spartans lost state triple jump champion Chris Mosbacher to graduation, as well as city 800 champ Scott LaForest. Stephen Flink, among Missoula's top distance runners since his freshman year, looks for a spot on the victory stand at state as a senior, as does jumper Sam O'Brien, who placed third at divisionals in high jump.
Little expects other boosts from quarter-miler Matt Schmasow and junior distance runner Ryan Fitzgerald, out for the track for the first time after placing 15th in the state cross-country meet last fall.
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