LAUREL — Kaitlyn Noyes surprised even herself Friday.
The Townsend sophomore entered the Class B state track and field meet at the Laurel Sports Complex with a personal-best long jump of 17 feet, 6 inches.
She obliterated that with an 18-02 mark on her first jump of the day and then improved to 18-04¾ on her third jump, both marks better than the Class B record of 18-0¼ set by Eureka’s Willa Holder in 1988. But both jumps were determined to be wind-aided, meaning they didn’t qualify for the record book.
“I was definitely really frustrated after my first set of jumps because, yes, that was a great new PR for me, but it was also a little bit of a letdown just because the wind was having a little bit of a fit with me,” Noyes said. “But by persevering I felt really good by finally getting it to work later on in finals.”
And it finally did work, with Noyes marking a jump of 18-0½ with no wind to officially claim the Class B record.
“One big thing is that when you jump into the air, you can tell when you’ve got a lot of power off of that board, a lot of your power just went into the ground and you’re way high up,” Noyes said. “… And all of my jumps, I felt that way for all of them. Just kind of really consistent for me.”
Noyes’ 10 points helped the Bulldogs jump to the girls team lead through the first four events. Townsend has 22 points and Huntley Project is in second with 20 after the first day.
The Red Devils got a win from Avery Gerdes in the 400-meter run (57.64 seconds), while Choteau’s Natalie Hodgskiss won the 1,600 (5:15.63) and Plains’ Alexis Deming won the discus (124-11).
Jefferson has a slim lead over Columbus — 31 points to 30 — in the boys team race after six events.
Tavan McMaster was the lone Panther to win Friday, taking the top spot on the podium among a competitive discus field. McMaster won with a throw of 166-04, edging Thompson Falls’ Braedon Ferris at 165-09 and fellow Panther Dalton Noble at 165-04.
Jefferson also racked up points in the 1,600-meter run, though maybe not as many as expected. Panthers Luke Mest, Dominic Hurlbert and Aaron French entered the meet with the three fastest seed times, but Peyton Summers of Wolf Point out-kicked Mest down the stretch to get the win. Summers crossed the finish line in 4:21.06, ahead of Mest at 4:21.93.
Big Timber’s Colter Anderson was third (4:27.96), followed by Columbus’ James Stensland-Plymale (4:30.62). Hurlbert (4:32.37) and French (4:33.72) were fifth and sixth.
Columbus got two big wins on the day with Degen Nelson out-jumping Baker’s Jarek Janz by one inch — 21-04 to 21-03 — to take gold in the long jump and Mason Meier winning the javelin on his final throw.
Glasgow’s Vaughn Miller took the javelin lead on his final throw with a mark of 184-0, only to see Meier best him on the final throw of the event.
Other boys winners Friday included Florence’s Isaac Bates in the 400 (50.5) and Superior’s Lucas Kovalsky in the pole vault (13-06).
