Montgomery hits his stride
When Ben Montgomery was younger, athletics interested him. But he didn’t know what sport was right for him.
“I’ve always been into any kind of racing since I was younger,” Montgomery said. “Car racing, horse racing, foot racing.”
When he got involved with cross country racing, it reminded him of a popular video game.
“It was like Mario Kart,” Montgomery said. “But it was like real life and no karts.”
Montgomery is a runner for the Bridgeland Bears and an elite one at that.
After crossing the finish line in third place at the UIL Class 6A state meet in early November, Montgomery is the 2023 All-Greater Houston Boys Runner of the Year.
Bridgeland cross country coach Kevin Waters has steadily seen his program grow from the ground up, as he is the original coach that’s been with the program since the Cy-Fair ISD school opened in 2017.
Montgomery’s bronze at state and gold medals at the regional and district meets this fall raised the bar even more so for the Bears.
“When we opened, we only had freshmen and sophomores,” Waters said. “We were second at district and were able to get to the regional meet. We’ve been to the regional meet every year that we’ve been open. We’ve won district five years in a row.
“It’s nice to have a kid with the talent that Ben has to supplement what we already have built. He’s just that last missing piece of that jigsaw puzzle.”
Montgomery, who moved with his family to Bridgeland at the beginning of his sophomore year, started his distance running career slowly. A swimmer since the fifth grade, Montgomery did a performance test in sixth grade and got a good score. His physical education teacher recommended he try track.
His middle school didn’t have organized cross country, so Montgomery didn’t run a major cross country race until he was a freshman at Northside Holmes in San Antonio.
Montgomery won his first race — at the junior varsity level — before joining the varsity team the rest of the season.
“It was still a big thing for me at the time,” Montgomery said. “I was actually good at this. I should probably keep doing this instead of swimming. Now, I’m just focused on running.”
With the family moving to Houston for career reasons, Ben’s father Aaron dialed up some of the more successful cross country coaches to see if Ben might be a good fit, pending the family’s ability to purchase a home zoned to that school.
Something about Bridgeland and running for Waters felt right.
“At the time, the school records and performance weren’t as good as the other schools that we were looking at,” Montgomery said. “My dad had this feeling that we should move to a house that was zoned for Bridgeland. He really seemed to like what the coach was saying about the team and all that. It’s really done me well.”
As a sophomore, Montgomery finished 22nd at state (16 minutes, 14.20 seconds) and Bridgeland was ninth as a team. He was second at district and fifth at the region meet to reach that point.
“He did some training with his old team over the summer before he got here before last year’s cross country season,” Waters said. “He turned into our No. 2 runner pretty quickly.”
In the spring, he qualified for state in the 3,200 and finished fifth (9:00.71).
Montgomery has made even bigger strides as a junior. He won gold medals at the district and regional meets and pushed the front of the pack at the state meet, finishing a minute quicker than the year before (in much better running conditions) and six seconds behind the winning pace set by Southlake Carroll sophomore Caden Leonard. The Bridgeland junior pushed across the finish line at Old Settlers Park in 15:06.70.
“We tried to run it a little more conservatively in the beginning and then bring it back at the end,” Waters said. “But he had to be in it to be in the Top 3. It was a little out of his comfort zone the first mile or two. But he sure had a lot of guts.”
With the experience of last year under his belt, Montgomery was more prepared this time for the difficult course in Round Rock that features hills, tight pack racing and even tighter turns.
“I keep forgetting how aggressive people are in that meet,” Montgomery said as he reflected on the state meet. “Everybody wants it, so they are going to do everything they can to fight for it. It’s a pretty hilly course, it’s designed to be extremely mentally demanding. Cross country isn’t just physically demanding, you need to have a good mindset to perform well. You just need to push through that pain.”
Montgomery had high hopes of winning it all. For now, he’ll settle for the best individual performance at a state meet in Bridgeland’s brief history.
“When I saw the clock, I was like ‘Oohhh,’ ” Montgomery said of crossing the finish line. “But I was also like ‘dang it,’ because I got third. Any person at my level, you want to win. It’s so competitive.
“It still felt like a great accomplishment. Not everybody podiums at state. Especially in 6A.”
The Bears finished sixth as a team, and Montgomery will be looked to as a leader next year as one senior from the state team graduates and the five sophomores can return.
“He was happy with third,” Waters said. “But not satisfied with it, if that makes sense.”
Montgomery, who qualified for the Nike Cross Nationals, which took place Dec. 2 in Portland, also is looking forward to track season.