Sweet Home High School alumni are competing in a variety of sports this winter. Here are some updates:
Oregon senior Dakotah Keys won the heptathlon Saturday, Feb. 1, at the UW Invitational indoor track and field meet at the University of Washington. Keys finished with 5,730 points, the third-highest point total in the NCAA so far this season and the second-highest of Keys’ career.
Keys entered the day with a sizeable lead on the field and extended that with wins in the 60 hurdles and the pole vault, bringing his total to four event wins during the two-day event.
The senior won the hurdles in 8.27 seconds, tying his personal best, before clearing 15-11 (4.85m) in the pole vault and running 2:44.79 in the 1,000. He finished the competition by either setting or tying a personal record in four of the seven events.
“Dakotah had a solid weekend, getting the win and nearly setting a PR,” said Head Coach Robert Johnson.
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Freshman Colton Schilling placed fourth at 141 pounds in the California Collegiate Open on Saturday at San Francisco State University Saturday, Feb. 1.
Schilling finished 5-2 after winning his first match 10-0 and pinning his second foe in 1:51 before losing in the quarterfinals 8-1. In the wrestlebacks, Schilling earned a 9-8 decision, a fall in 2:15 and a win by injury default before he fell 3-0 to Joey Delgado of Oregon State in the match for third and fourth place. Because he is red-shirting, Schilling is only wrestling in tournaments, in which he is 13-8 overall, wrestling at 133 pounds earlier in the season, and more recently at 141.
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At Southern Oregon University, freshman Tyler Cowger has worked his way into the starting line-up for the Raiders.
On Friday, night, Jan. 31, Cowger, wrestling at 149 pounds, helped SOU to a 28-12 win at 18th-ranked Menlo. Cowger decisioned Menlow’s Jason Ladd 7-3. The team victory left the Raiders at 7-3 overall, securing SOU’s 44th consecutive winning season. Teammate Brock Crocker is a junior, Scottie Stockman is a redshirt freshman, while Zach Gill is, like Cowger, a freshman.
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Junior Gavin Kauffman is averaging seven points per game for Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho, where he transferred after playing two years at Chemetketa, where he averaged 14 points and five rebounds per game and helped them to last year’s Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges title.
Lewis-Clark is 18-7 overall and 5-5 in the Frontier Conference, heading into the last month of the regular season.
The 6-4 Kauffman turned heads with his first basket of the season back in October with a vicious, rim-rocking slam dunk that surprised everybody in the building, including Lewis-Clark Coach Brandon Rinta included.
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Corban junior Olivia Johnson finished second (out of 264) in the women’s division of the Cascade Half Marathon Jan. 26 in Turner, running 1:28.49 to finish 22nd overall. That time was 44 seconds slower than her finish last year, but qualified her for the NAIA marathon at the national championships May 22–24 in Gulf Shores, Ala.
Johnson finished 15th out of 43 runners in last year’s nationals.