Brett King
For The New Era
Sweet Home’s cross-country runners inched past Elmira on both the boys and girls sides at the Sky-Em League Championships Thursday, Oct. 24, at Lane Community College for a second place title and trip to the state championships.
“Our goal of course was to make it to state,” Coach Billy Snow said. “We knew it was going to be a battle for the guys. But the whole team did what we hoped and knew they could do.”
Jakob Hiett tossed up some dust for the racers behind as he held the lead through the finish line with a time of 16:16, over 20 seconds faster than his winning time last season and 35 seconds ahead of Sisters’ Brandon Pollard, who was second. Nicole Rasmussen finished as runner up in the girls race.
“I think I did pretty well,” Hiett said, “I hit my goals of getting first and finishing in the low 16’s. But I’m mainly looking forward to state.”
Although Hiett’s time and place was huge on the varsity boys’ side, the whole team wouldn’t have made it to state if they didn’t push it past Elmira’s runners, who scored 68, just two points behind Sweet Home’s score of 66. Six of Sweet Home’s boys placed higher than they were ranked going into the meet.
Sisters won the team title with 31 points. La Pine was fourth, with 89, followed by Cottage Grove (112) and Junction City (156).
Kicking it to an eighth-place finish with an improvement of more than a minute over last season’s district race, in which he placed 21st, was senior Ian Wingo as Sweet Home’s second finisher in 18:11.
Trailing closely behind Wingo was senior Chace Hutchins, finishing 12th place out of a field of 42 finishers with a time of 18:28, less than 10 seconds off his personal best set on the very fast Country Fair Classic course the week before.
Finishing behind Hutchins were freshman Issac Justham, in 20th at 19:08; senior Stephen Bishop, in 25th at 19:26; as well as non-scorers Joseph Rasmussen, in 29th at 19:49 and senior Robert Gourley, in 31st at 19:56.
“We had a couple guys run really well,” Snow said, “But Stephen really stepped it up there and ran one of his best races this season.”
Bishop was only eight seconds shy of his personal record of 19:18, also set at the Country Fair Classic. Rasmussen, a sophomore, was the only Sweet Home boy to post a personal-best time in the race, clipping a second off his time from the Country Fair meet.
In the boys junior varsity race, sophomore Julian Hesberg was fifth in 20:19, with freshman Nick Tolman 25th in 22:46 and sophomore Aaron Blanchard one place behind in 22:46.
For the top four girls during the varsity race, it was an elbow-to-elbow race around the first loop of the Lane Community College campus. It wasn’t until late in the race when Cottage Grove’s sophomore Breanna Wright moved ahead of the group, leaving Sweet Home senior Nicole Rasmussen 10 seconds behind her finishing time of 19:50.
Rasmussen finished in 2nd at 20:00 out of a field of 34 girls.
“I am excited to head to state with my team,” Rasmussen said, “I couldn’t ask for a better senior year cross-country season.”
It was the sixth time in the past seven years that the Husky girls have qualified for state, which requires a top-two district finish. They missed by a point in 2008.
Behind Rasmussen finished four girls who ran in a classic cross-country pack: freshman Dana Hiett, in 12th finishing at 22:49; Natasha Rasmussen, in 13th at 22:56 – a PR for the freshman who has competed in both volleyball and cross-country this season; sophomore Sierra Swanson, in 14th at 23:14; sophomore Kayleen Keeney, in 16th at 23:36; as well as sophomore Maria Daniels in 30th, finishing in 27:25, and senior Mami Sakamoto in 32nd at 29:14.
“It was fun to see a pack of our four girls running together behind Rasmussen,” Snow said, “They stuck with each other almost the whole race.”
Sisters placed its top six runners behind Rasmussen to take an easy district team title with 25 points. Sweet Home was second with 57, followed by Elmira (82), Junction City (101) and Cottage Grove (106). La Pine did not have the necessary five runners to score.
Sierrah Owen was the only junior varsity runner for Sweet Home, finishing 16th in 31:39.
Sweet Home will head back to LCC on Nov. 2 to compete at the OSAA 4A Oregon State Championships. The 4A championships will start off with the girls’ race starting at 11:15 a.m., followed by the boys’ race at 11:50 a.m.
“At state we are hoping for both the guys and girls teams to make it up to the top 10,” Snow said, “I want to see Jakob get top three and Nicole to reach top five.”
Hiett said he hopes to hang with Mack Marbas of Siuslaw who currently stands No. 1 in 4A state with a time of 15:13 which placed him fourth at the George Fox XC Classic. Hiett ran against Marbas and teammate Mitchell Butler at Philomath three weeks ago, finishing behind both in what was his fifth race in two weeks at the time.