Butte High junior Lincoln Zell and the Butte High freshman girls’ cross country runners are this week’s Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week.

The honors come after the Bulldogs put on a strong performance at the Belgrade Invitational Friday at the Gallatin County Regional Park in Bozeman.

Zell placed 30th with a time of 19 minutes, 2 seconds in the meet to take home the boys’ honor. That strong run came on the heels of him setting a personal record with a time of 18:50 the week before at the Coaches Invitational meet in Missoula.

Bulldog coaches say Lincoln worked hard all summer to be one of the leaders of the Bulldogs. Fellow Junior Camden Houchin led the Bulldogs placing seventh with a time of 17:17 at the Belgrade meet. Other Bulldogs scoring points for the team points in the varsity meet were junior Ryan Hanson, 20:34; senior Blair Hamry, 21:22; and Junior Nathan Stone, 21:55. Lincoln’s brother Isaac Zell led the freshman boys with a time of 21:21. Click here for complete results.

The Bulldog freshman girls share the girls’ award after winning the Freshman meet at the Belgrade race. Sophia Houchin and Evie Smith led the Bulldogs. Houchin placed second in 21:44, and Smith took third in 22:18. Other runners on the freshman team were Penelope Luebke ninth in 24:10, Addie Thomas in 25:32, Cambria Zahn in 34:37, Avery Blue in 35:06 and Lainee Walsh-Hill in 42:21. The Bulldogs scored 30 points to claim the title, followed by Billings West with 43 and Helena Capital with 49.

For the second year, Leskovar Honda, home of the 20-year, 200,000-mile warranty, is teaming up with the ButteCast to honor the finest student-athletes from the Mining City in an effort to encourage more children to get up, get out and try all kinds of sports and activities.

Photo of the freshman girls courtesy Ashley Choquette.