Senior Klaire Kovatch smiles while retrieving her discus after seeing her marker placed near the 160-foot mark. She broke her own school record of 150 feet 2 inches and the meet record with the 159 foot 3 inch throw.
Senior Eric Lorentz competes in the Shot Put. His throw of 42 feet 1 ¼ inches was more than 2 feet farther than his best throw in 2019 and was good for fourth place at Bigfork.
Kyla Conley receives the baton from Sariah Maughan in the 4x400 meter relay. Emily Maughan ran the third leg while Klaire Kovatch ran the final leg finishing in first place with a time of 4:13.03.
Chase Haines hands off the baton to Klayton Kovatch after the first leg of the 4x100 meter relay. The pair was joined by Sawyer Shelmerdine and Owen Hoag and took first place with a time of 46.30.
Hannah Ayers reaches back to Dani Sexton to make the final exchange of the 4x100 relay. Tru Good and Kyla Conley joined the two on the JV relay team and took fifth place with a time of 56.75.
BIGFORK - Seeley-Swan Lady Blackhawk Klaire Kovatch furthered her own school discus record and shattered the Bigfork Invitational meet record on April 3 with a throw of 159 feet 3 inches. The throw moves Klaire up to eighth in the nation for high school discus throws this year.
After the throw Klaire said she has been feeling good all week and some of the things she has been working on were starting to click.
"I knew that if I got a hold of one it was going to go," Klaire said.
She bested the meet record set by Plain's Leah Thompson in 2016 by nearly 35 feet. Thompson is the current Class C State record holder with a throw of 154 feet 11 inches in 2016 and the current All Class State record is 157 feet set in 2018 by Missoula Big Sky's Brooke Kearns. While Klaire has exceeded both of these records, State records can only be set at the state meet.
According to the available record books, Klaire's throw is the second farthest ever recorded during a Montana high school meet. Jessica Sharbono of Billings West High School had a 169 foot 1 inch throw in 2010 at the Great Falls Optimist meet.
Klaire's feat helped propel the Lady Blackhawks to third place at the meet with 70 points behind Bigfork with 92 and Whitefish with 165. The Seeley-Swan Boys also earned third place with 67 points behind Ronan with 80 and Bigfork with 124.5.
Sariah Maughan was having a good day and racking up the points as well. She beat the state qualifying times taking second in the 400 and first in the 800 finishing in 59.81 seconds and 2:23.84 respectively.
The Lady Blackhawks 4x400 relay, consisting of Klaire, Sariah, Emily Maughan and Hannah Ayers, also auto qualified for the state meet winning the race with a time of 4:17.23.
On the Boys side both the 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams with Owen Hoag, Sawyer Shelmerdine, Chase Haines and Klayton Kovatch took first place with times of 46.30 and 3:41.42.
Walker McDonald earned the only individual first place in the Discus with a personal best throw of 146 feet 11 inches. Klayton finished just behind Walker for second with a throw of 131 feet 9.5 inches.
Owen beat the state qualifying time in the 400-meter and took second place with a time of 51.48.
This week the team heads to the Frenchtown Invitational Friday, April 9. The meet starts at 10 a.m.
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