by Parker H. Jimison
Huntley Project High School finished out their school year with a bang, managing to put three more state championships under their belt for the year this last Saturday, bringing home the big prize in softball, girls’ track, and boys’ track, bringing the grand total up to five state championships for the year. Tim Bastian, Athletic Director for Huntley Project, says that although Huntley Project has a great coaching staff throughout the entire school, he gives all the credit to Huntley’s student athletes who he says put in massive amounts of time and dedication and are bound and determined to constantly get better.
That tenacity was on full display this last weekend as the Huntley Project track teams put on a dual display of dominance at the state track meet in Kalispell. The girls’ team put up seven personal records and two season records on their way to their 74 point tie for first with Baker, led by the first place placings of Emily Poole in the discus and javelin and the second place placings of Macee Murphy in the 200 meters, 100 meter hurdles, and the 300 meter hurdles as well as second place in the 4×400 relay by Alana Graves, Natalie Lile, Chantel Chase, and Macee Murphy.
The boys’ track team put on a dominating performance, with fifteen personal bests leading to a crushing 122-point victory, with Manhattan coming in second with 43. This effort was led by first place finishings in the pole vault by Chris Kistler, the high jump by Noah Bouchard, discus by Journey Grimsrud, the 4×100 relay by Mitchell Burns, Bradley Graves, Asher Croy, and Austin Hernandez, and the 4×400 relay by Austin Hernandez, Bradley Graves, Chris Hust, and Mitchell Burns, as well as second place finishings by Austin Hernandez in the 100 and 200 meters, Bradley Graves in the 300 meter hurdles, discus by Isaiah Bouchard, and the domination of the 110 meter hurdles with first, second, and third being taken with personal bests by Bradley Graves, Noah Bouchard, and Chris Hurst respectively.
Not to be overshadowed, the Red Devil’s softball team was equally domineering across the state in Belgrade. In the first round of the state playoffs on Thursday, they took on Manhattan and emerged victorious with a score of 4-3. They then came back the next day and trounced Florence-Carlton in their quarterfinal matchup, opening strong with three scores in the first inning and finishing the game with a final score of Huntley Project 8, Florence-Carlton 2. Later that day, they were pitted against Plains Hot Springs in the semifinals. In a hard-fought game with 25 at bats and 5 hits each, Huntley Project emerged victorious with the one score in the first inning being enough to push them on to the championship game with a 1-0 final score.
The next day, as their classmates were taking state in Kalispell, the Red Devils softball team went into the championship match against the team they had defeated in the quarterfinals, Florence-Carlton. Florence-Carlton opened the scoring in the first inning but the game stayed close right until the end, with a score of 6-5 going into the seventh inning where Huntley managed another two scores before shutting down Florence-Carlton to win state 8-5.
