Manhattan’s Blomback signs with Jackets’ track, x-country

 By Mike Brandt • Staff Writer

MANHATTAN — Montana State University-Billings signed another Manhattan distance runner recently. Ryan Blomback will join former Manhattan teammates, Taylor Canfield and Tyson Vanderby, on the Yellowjackets’ cross county and track and field teams.

With those two already there, and a growing program underway, it made the decision to attend the Division II school much easier for Blomback.

“They have a nice program there and it seems like they have a really good coach (Dave Coppock) there, ” he said. “I think the program they have there is pretty good. The coach will get me where he wants me to be by the beginning of the cross country season.”

Blomback’s high school track coach, Ed Royce, said that having two former teammates on the college team will make Blomback’s transition from high school to college easier.

“Ryan has some support going into the college program with Taylor and Tyson,” said Royce. “It’s nice to have someone there to show him the ropes.”

Blomback said that his summer training includes running at least 50 miles per week.

“I have to run a lot. It’s a big step up from high school,” he noted.

Royce has seen Blomback many times out on the streets of Manhattan this summer.

“He’s really dedicated to the program, whatever program the college coach put him on. I don’t know what he has to run, but I’m sure it must be 40 or 50 miles a week,” said Royce. “I see him running the streets of Manhattan every day. That tells me that he really wants to be successful as a college runner.”

Blomback, who thinks that running in college will “be a blast”, was part of three state championship teams during his high school career. He ran on the Tigers’ 2005 state Class B cross country team and was a distance runner on the Tigers’ back-to-back 2008-09 state championship teams. He was also a member of the 2008 state Class B runner-up team in cross country.

Blomback attended the Montana State University distance camp in 2007 and was a member of the USATF Junior Olympics team that participated in the national meet in Lawrence, Kan. He also attended the Flathead distance camp in 2008 and was a member of the 2005-08 Big Sky Wind Drinkers team.Royce said that Blomback had a strong work ethic in cross country and track during high school.

“He’s been a great kid. He works hard. He’s very dedicated to running,” he said. “He’s just a competitor. He shows up at every meet and ready to run.”

Blomback has a personal best time of 16:43 in cross country and 4:36 in the 1,600 and 10:17 in the 3,200 meter runs. All of those top times came during his senior season. He also had a time of 16:32 at the Mountain West Classic (cross country meet) in Missoula last fall and ran the Big Sky State Games summer biathlon 5K in 40:37.

Blomback said that his high school career is packed with great memories.

“It’s hard to describe. Work with John Silitti had been awesome. He is a good coach,” said Blomback. “(Former coach) Scott Francis was a pretty good cross country coach. It’s been a lot of fun running with my teammates.”

Silitti is the Tigers’ distance coach in track and will be the new cross country coach this fall. He has kept the distance runners going strong during the off season.

“(He) had us working hard. Especially during the off season. He would keep us running and keep in shape for track,” said Blomback. “He really kept tabs on us. He did a good job helping us through the winter months. We would have to run about 200 miles through the winter months. At that time you would like to just sit around and take some time off. But Silitti wouldn’t let us.”

Blomback wrapped up his senior season with a fifth place finish in the 3,200 and seventh in the 1,600 at the state track meet held in Kalispell last month. His time in the 3,200 was 10:17.05. He had a 2:22.32 in the 800 (5th) at the Meet of Champions in Butte the week after state.

“I didn’t have a good cross country season, especially at state. I used that downfall as fuel to get me ready for track. With all of the cool teammates I didn’t even think about cross country,” said Blomback. “I just concentrated on track. Focused on what I had to do. Running with the underclassmen was great.”

Blomback had three underclassmen push him during his final season. Mike Asay, Tim Royce, and Bryan Schmidt often lit the fire that fueled Blomback into the state meet.

“That’s how we got to where we were. We just pushed each other. Manhattan has always had a good distance runners,” said Blomback. “One of my goals was to help my teammates. I have done that since my freshman year.”

Once his running career is over, Blomback would like to coach cross country and track some day.

“MSU-Billings has a new program that deals with the outdoors. They basically work on leadership skills,” he explained. “It would be cool to try to coach to see what it is like. To see if I could build a program somewhere.”