After a hard week of work, Sweet Home’s cross-country runners didn’t break records Saturday, Oct. 6, at the Paul Mariman Invitational held at Philomath High School.
But that is part of the process, their coaches said.
“I think things are going pretty well,” said Head Coach Kambria Schumacher. “This is still a fairly young team so they still need more experience in how to pace better. A lot of them start the race really well, then the second mile gets them. They need to learn to embrace the pain for the second mile.”
Assistant Coach Courtney Emmert, who coached the team at the meet, said the Huskies “did well,” but not as well as they were hoping.
“They were a little disappointed,” she said.
Eddy Martinez-Maya was Sweet Home’s top finisher for the boys, 24th out of 83 runners in 18:34.
“He wanted to break 18,” Emmert said.
That seemed to be the trend for Sweet Home, as nobody broke their season’s best, despite the course being “super fast” on a cool, overcast day, she said.
Rounding out the finishers for the varsity boys were Gavin Walberg, 30th in 18:46; Tristan Saultz, 32nd in 18:51; Treyson Smith, 36th in 19:00; Austin Sills, 45th in 19:25; and Nate Coleman, 49th in 19:37.
Kolby Spink of Newport won the boys race in 16:45; Ethan Hosan of Sisters in third in 17:00. Newport won the team competition with 63 points, followed by Philomath with 70, Sisters in fifth with 145 and Sweet Home in seventh (162) in a 12-team field.
For the girls, Jessy Hart was 18th in 21:53.90 in a field of 63 runners, led by Hannah Hernandez of Philomath, who won in 18:58.30. Sicily Neuschwander, Sweet Home’s other runner Saturday, was 57th in 29:06.
“Jessy got out hard and came through the first mile pretty fast, but she got a side ache,” Emmert said.
In the boys junior varsity race, Sweet Home placed fifth in the team competition with 139 points, behind Philomath, first with 19 as the Warriors put five runners among the top seven finishers.
Tristan Calkins was first for Sweet Home, 11th overall in the 65-runner field.
“He was pretty excited about that. He got a pumpkin,” Emmert said.
Brian Frick was 19th, in 20:52; Zach Zanona was 29th in 21:38; Eric Roddy was 44th in 23:39; and Jaren Adams was 54th, in 24:50.
The coaches said the Huskies will work hard this week, then begin tapering.
They will run their final pre-district race on Wednesday, Oct. 17, at Elmira’s Country Fair Classic, which will not be held at the Country Fair this year, due to “permitting issues.” Instead, it will be held at Richardson Park, which is a fast course on Fern Ridge Reservoir. The first race will be at 3 p.m.
The Oregon West Conference Championships will take place the following Wednesday, Oct. 25, at Lane Community College.