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A small Lake Roosevelt team travelled to West Valley High School in Spokane Valley for the Howard Dolphin Invitational Saturday.

“We took a small group of determined Raiders to compete against 1800 other athletes at the West Valley Invite,” Head Coach Lori Adkins said. “The coaches were very pleased with the comradeship the LR team showed for each other during the seven-hour competition.”

It was the season opener for the Raiders, and many either showed good improvement from the start of last season, or picked up right where they left off.

Katelynn Schilling was the only girl at the meet for LR. In the shot put, Schilling picked up where she’d left off as a freshman, placing eighth with a throw of 32 feet and one-half inch. This single team point was all LR would score to place 21st for the meet.

In the discus, Schilling threw 84 feet, 8 inches, which did not place but is a good starting point for the season.

Octavio Alejandre placed fifth in the shot, throwing a meet personal record of 46-1.5, over four feet better than what he threw last year at the same meet. At the discus, Alejandre did not place, but threw for a career PR of 119-4, 29 feet better than at the same meet last year. Alejandre scored all four of LR’s boys’ team points at the meet, placing them at 16th in the meet.

Nathaniel Hall did not place but also recorded two meet PRs. In the 100 meter dash, Hall ran a 12.53-second race, three-tenths better than last season. Later in the 200, he ran a 25.32-second race, which was three-quarters of a second faster than last year’s time at West Valley.

Matthew Tillman also improved times to start the season. He ran the 100 in 13.29 seconds, .09 off his career PR time. Later Tillman ran the 200 in 27.49, close to a new PR. Cameron Tillman competed in both the 100 and the triple jump. In the 100, Tillman finished in 13.51, a tenth of a second better than last year. In the triple jump, Tillman did not record a fair jump.

Nathan Morrell competed in all three throwing events at West Valley. In the shot, Morrell threw 31-8 in the shot and a meet PR at 100-4 discus, about 15 feet further than at the same meet last year. He threw the javelin 93-7 to start the season.

Coach Adkins was pleased with the performance of the squad.

“We came out with big results from our senior throwers (Octavio and Katelyn),” Adkins said. “Nathaniel Hall had solid performances in the sprints setting himself up nicely in district standings.”

This week the Raiders are preparing for the 27-team Ezra Gordon Invite in Colville. LR looks to take a larger squad to better compete with the other schools. Field events will start at 10:30 a.m. Track events begin at 11.