Sweet Home’s track and field athletes head for the district meet Thursday and Saturday of this week and they can only move up, Coach Billy Snow says.
The Huskies have struggled this year, more than they have in recent years, with mistakes, with ineligibility and other responsibility issues, and with the one thing they can’t easily change – opponents who are simply faster.
The speed issue has been lurking, Snow said, and he’s not surprised that Sweet Home goes into the meet with one clear favorite on both the boys and girls teams: sophomore Jakob Hiett in the distances.
Hiett has run 9:04.27 in the 3000 – the fastest time in 4A for a sophomore and 36 seconds faster than his closest competition thus far, and the 800 (2:00.07), a second and a half ahead of Sisters’ Brandon Pollard (2:01.67). Hiett trails Pollard (4:10.37) in the 1500 (4:13.45) for the league lead thus far.
It’s not all doom and gloom, Snow says; it’s just that the Huskies don’t quite have the team strength they’ve had in recent years.
“I knew this was coming,” he said. “The last two classes in the junior high, there was nothing fantastic, speed-wise. We just need to find some new blood somewhere when we’re low on team speed.”
There are bright spots.
Junior Spencer Knight has been steadily improving, setting personal bests in his last three races in the 100 (11.49) and setting a personal best in the 200 (23.84) in his first outing in that event this season two weeks ago.
“Spencer has really come on in the late season,” Snow said. “He’s dropped somewhere between a quarter and a half second consistently (in the 100). We need it.”
Also on the boys side, junior Ben Terry sat out with eligibility problems for much of the season, but has stormed back to third place by a foot in the shot put in the Sky-Em standings.
Meanwhile, Alex Seitz, who picked up the discus for the first time at the Sweet Home Decathlon just over a month ago, stands fourth in that event with a new PR of 122-9.
Austin Stutzman is in a three-way tie for second in the high jump at 6-0, behind Joshua Ramirez of La Pine (6-2), going into districts.
The boys short relay team has struggled over the past two meets, running out of the zone during two separate handoffs in those two races, resulting in disqualifications.
“We’re having trouble with handoffs,” Snow said. “Each week somebody makes a mistake. It’s real simple. If I’m an outgoing runner, I have to allow the incoming runner to get to their mark (the spot on the track where it’s time for the outgoing runner to take off) and provide a good target for them. We just have people not doing their job. Maybe they’re not going hard enough in practice. You have to go as hard in practice as you do in a meet.
“The rubber meets the road on Saturday. They’d better get it under control. Those are the types of things we can control. You always have mishaps, but we’ve had way too many this year.”
On the girls side, Haley Kent also set PRs in the 100 (13.46) and 200 (27.83) in a small tune-up meet Wednesday, May 8, against Pleasant Hill, Jefferson and McKenzie. And despite a bad hand-off, the girls short relay team of Kent, her twin sister Courtney, India Porter and Josie Knight ran a season’s best 52.28.
Another bright spot for the girls is senior Sabrina Davis, who PR’d in every event she competed in on May 8 – the 100 hurdles (17.85) and the long jump (14-0¼), as well as the two relays.
Sophomore India Porter has also steadily improved this year and has the second-fastest time in the 400 (61.75), behind Cottage Grove’s Christine Dunn, who has run 56.92, the third fastest time in the state in all divisions (behind North Valley twin sisters Venessa and Kerissa D’Arpino, who both have run under 56 seconds.)
Dunn also leads the 800 in the Sky Em at 2:16.32, five seconds faster than defending champion Zoe Falk of Sisters (2:21.13) and Dunn’s teammate, freshman Breanna Wright (2:27.23), but Snow said Dunn is not scheduled to run that race at districts.
Wright has the fastest time in the 1500 (4:55.40), with Falk and the Huskies’ Nicole Ramussen dead even behind her at 5:08 and change. She also leads the 3000 (10:39.80), ahead of Rasmussen (11:13.39).
Also coming on strong at the end of the season for the Huskies is junior Kaitlyn Watts in the discus, who has PR’d in both of her last two meets, adding a foot to her lifetime best to go 92-4.
Snow said if Watts can improve her spin and add some significant distance this weekend, she could be in the thick of things with the five throwers currently ranked above her.
“If she could pop a 10-foot improvement, she’ll score points for us,” he said.
Missing will be junior Jade Corliss, who placed third at state in the shot put last year, but is no longer on the roster, coaches said.
Snow said the Huskies will have to battle to make state, which requires finishing in the top two places in district, although there are automatic qualifying times and marks in each event for leagues that have highly competitive events.
“We don’t have a shoo-in in any event, other than Jakob,” he said of his team. “They’ll have to be at the top of their game.”
But the district meet sometimes brings out the best in athletes. Snow is fond of telling the story of Dan Dodge, a member of the 1986 track team, who was ranked no better than about fifth in the league in the 3000, but shot to the lead in the district race and “just hung in there and battled and battled and won the whole thing,” Snow said.
His own daughter, Megan Snow, did the same thing in the district cross-country race in which the Huskies had a very weak team. Snow, a senior, had never beaten any of the Sisters runners and had never been to state, but decided she was going to qualify and ended up placing ahead of the entire Outlaws squad and high enough to make state.
“That was a PR by a long shot,” Billy Snow said.
“The reality is it’s anybody’s ball game at that point. Anybody who gets in really has to fight for it.”
Sweet Home vs. Jefferson,
Pleasant Hill and McKenzie
Top 3 and Sweet Home finishers
*Personal Record
Boys Results
100 – (1) Spencer Knight (SH) 11.49*; (2) Dominic Yates-Skinner (J) 12.11; (3) Austin Fisher (PH) 12.28; (6) Wyatt Hayes (SH) 12.66; (8) David St. Onge (SH) 13.33*; (9) Julian Hesberg (SH) 13.39*; (12) Bailey Wicker (SH) 14.76.
200 – (1) Spencer Knight (SH) 23.92; (2) Dominic Yates-Skinner (J) 24.78; (3) Trever Olson (SH) 24.98*; (6) Wyatt Hayes (SH) 26.03; (7) TJ Baham (SH) 26.32*; (10) David St. Onge (SH) 27.61*; (13) Tyrel Miller (SH) 29.05*; (15) Bailey Wicker (SH) 30.66.
400 – (1) Trever Olson (SH) 55.08; (2) Alex Nastasiuk (M) 57.48; (3) Chace Hutchins (SH) 57.48*.
800 – (1) Jakob Hiett (SH) 2:00.07*; (2) Rutger Farry (PH) 2:11.60; (3) Jon Mahody (M) 2:11.91.
1500 – (1) Jon Mahody (M) 4:33.35; (2) Robert Gourley 4:59.95; (3) Micah Human (J) 5:01.05.
3000 – (1) Justin Webb (SH) 10:21.89; (2) Micah Human (J) 11:17.78.
110 Hurdles – (1) Alex Seitz (SH) 16.86*; (2) Eric Flierl (SH) 17.34*; (3) Matt Davis (SH) 17.76*.
300 Hurdles – (1) Alex Nastasiuk (M) 44.45; (2) Eric Flierl (SH) 45.75; (3) Chace Hutchins (SH) 46.71; (4) Matt Davis (SH) 48.40.
4×400 Relay – (1) Sweet Home (Trever Olson, Parke Young, Alex Seitz, Chace Hutchins) 3:48.49; (2) Pleasant Hill 4:07.46; (3) Jefferson 4:11.35.
Shot Put