Whitefish’s Holmquist excels in technique-heavy shot put

Matt Beckwith, longtime throwing coach at Whitefish High School and a 160-foot discus thrower in his high school days, knows the good ones don’t come around very often.

In Talon Holmquist, the Bulldogs have a shot putter that looks the part (6-foot-6, 245 pounds) and backs it up.

“I got him as a freshman and it started to click,” Beckwith said. “And man, he really came into his own with it. He’s really impressed me, every step of the way.”

Heading into the State A track and field meet Friday and Saturday in Butte, Holmquist has the best shot put in the state: 56 feet, 10.5 inches, set this past weekend at the Western A Divisional.

His previous best was 53-8, thrown on May 7. It was the kind of leap a coach dreams of, from a coach’s dream: Big frame, with the patience to keep working technique and the ability to make it all work in meets.

“There’s a lot of little things,” Holmquist, a senior, said. “I know what I should do all the time; it’s just putting everything together. This weekend was the best overall weekend I’ve ever had.”

“He’s far and away the best thrower I’ve had,” Beckwith said. “We work on being consistent, and making little improvements every day.

“Wednesday night (May 18) was the last night we threw at practice before divisionals. And the last one he had there was just a bomb. Something clicked there. I said, ‘OK, let’s take that one to Saturday.’ And he sure did.”

It wasn’t always this way, Holmquist said. As a freshman, he hung out with senior Dillon Botner and didn’t raise many eyebrows.

“It wasn’t anything super special,” he remembered. “I was throwing around 35 feet. Then sophomore year we didn’t get a season.

“I was coming into last year kind of blind and didn’t know where it was going. But then I was throwing in the mid- to high-40s, and figured out if I worked at it, I could go someplace with it.”

He hit 48 feet his second meet in 2021, then 50-1.5 at divisionals and then 52-3.5 to win his first State A title.

This season he started out throwing 51, then spent four meets in the 53-foot range. Along the way, on April 26, he lost a duel with Hamilton’s Andrew Burrows. That’s one loss in 11 meets.

“I really enjoy that aspect of throwing — the competition,” Holmquist said. “You hate to get beat, but you can joke around a lot when you’re standing around. In a couple of years — he’s only a sophomore — Burrows is going to be real good.”

Burrows threw 55-0 at last week’s Western A, for the record. He’s Hamilton’s main threat to Holmquist repeating as champion.

Holmquist is the nephew of Bozeman High basketball standout, then coach, Wes Holmquist, who now coaches the Gallatin girls hoops team. This is a basketball family, though Holmquist also spent last fall playing high school football for the first time.

He capably shored up the Bulldogs’ O-line.

“I knew going into it I wasn’t really interested in playing college football,” said the tackle, who nonetheless drew interest from Carroll College and Montana State. “But I'm really glad I decided to do it. Just that camaraderie — the small-town high school football team atmosphere. It was a great experience.”

Of his hoops career, he says: “I played a very traditional low post.” College basketball wasn’t really his future, either.

Throwing? Possibly. He plans to study architecture at MSU, but is unsure if he’s reached a marker to get scholarship money from the Bobcats’ track and field team. If he doesn’t, he figures he’ll just hit the books.

“He has a pretty good head on his shoulders,” Beckwith said. “He checks all the coaching boxes. Great person, great student, fun to be sound. And of course, a great athlete.”

A dude who glides and lets fly better than anyone in the state so far.

“Most of your furthest throws, you don’t really feel like you’re pushing it,” Holmquist said. “It’s just smooth. If you try to muscle it, it doesn’t go as far.”

Last week bears this out. Divisionals week cut down the number of throwers at practice.

“It was a smaller group, and some more technical coaching,” he said. “I normally end my training sessions with two or three throws. My very last one — we don’t measure at practice but it was a good two or three feet further.

“Everything came together all at once.”