BELT — Following last Friday's district 8C boys and girls meets — where the Belt boys won and girls took second — the Huskies are picking up some momentum heading to the final stretch of the season.
Impressive speed, long jumps and far throws have been showcased by the athletes this spring. One of the key marks that Belt currently posts is the girls 1,600-meter relay team stands alone as the only state qualified group in Class C.
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"We were feeling good, like it was a pretty good race day for us all," junior McKenzie Pogany said on breaking the state qualifying mark May 3. "We were determined and we wanted to do it for our team."
In the KLH Memorial meet, Belt posted a time of 4:16.99, one hundredth of a second better than the girls relay mark required to compete at the Class C meet. Pogany said the team was set on getting a new best time that day.
"We weren't really expecting that we were going to, I guess pre-qualify, we were just really wanting to (record a new best) because there was a team that was close to us," Pogany said. "We were like we just want to PR and get closer up, and then we ended up pre-qualifying."
That new best time for Belt was a six-second improvement from the groups prior top mark.
On the topic of Husky relays, the girls 400-meter team is the defending state champion of the event. This year's group returns two of the sprinters of that bunch, and are once again already qualified to try and repeat.
"The success that the team has had has been great this season," sophomore Destinee Goodman said. "We are all very young.
"We're hoping to get, you know, 51s, 50s, getting close to last year's time."
Belt's 400 relay team currently has the second-best time of 51.50 seconds which only trails Fort Benton.
Goodman herself has Class C's sixth-best 100-meter dash time of 12.92, and she'll also be competing in that race at state.
"The competition is great this year," Goodman said. "That's what I'm looking forward to is, you know racing against fast people, and get faster."
As well as the girls, the boys 400-meter group also is state qualified by having a best time of 45.17 (seventh in Class C).
Two of the legs in that relay are senior Luke Highfill and junior Cash Smith.
"We have some good meets and bad handoffs, and we'd have some good splits, and then something would just kind of (be) barely off," Highfill said. "We've had some good placements, but honestly we've been switching things around trying to make things better."
"Our handoffs need to be better," Smith said. "Me and Tucker LaPlaunt, we've switched. I'm first leg now and he's last, and we're just getting our handoffs dialed in and hopefully we're ready to win."
Highfill and Smith are also both top competitors in discus and long jump respectively, with both being very close to qualifying in shot put and triple jump.
The district 8C discus title was won by Highfill with a best throw of 144 feet, 9 inches, and he said he only hopes to improve that over these final two weeks.
"Practice has been really looking good, and we're throwing farther and farther," Highfill said. "I think that top spot's really acquirable."
Smith has the seventh-best long jump currently, as he will have a shot at a state title there as well.
"Been working hard with coach, we do long jump like every Tuesday," Smith said. "I try to go with him at least three times a week, two times a week, and then we just go all out at the meet."
Belt begins competition at the Northern C divisional starting Thursday in Great Falls.
