Sweet Home Junior High’s track program experienced a surge of newcomers this year, which resulted in a very young team that showed a lot of promise, Head Coach Lela Danforth said.
Eighth-grader Matt Davis ran 15.34 to break a long-standing 100 hurdles record set by Brandon Gaskey, father of Davis’ former teammate Kyler Gaskey, who was a high school freshman this year.
She said others who show promise going into their freshman year include eighth-graders Patric Dishaw, Josie Knight, Kayleen Keeney and Sierra Swanson.
Knight led the 18-school Tri-County League in the 100, at 13.24, despite suffering injuries that severely curtailed her ability to compete most of the season. Swanson and Keeney were late-bloomers this season.
Dishaw was a force in the discus (118-0), in which he posted the third-best mark in the league, and the shot put (40-7).
Swanson high jumped 4-4 to finish sixth in the league final marks, and dropped her 800 time by 17 seconds (2:44.20) over the course of five meets, while Keeney tried a number of events, but showed great promise as a thrower, Danforth said.
“Sierra clicked this year and learned how to compete,” she said. “Kayleen was new to track and was trying to find her events. She has a lot of promise in the throws.”
“We were a young, inexperienced team this year,” she said. “We had a lot of new kids and we were trying to fit the new kids into spots they were willing to try.”
Finding enough assistants to give the rookies the training they need at the junior high level is always a challenge and Danforth said that was again the case this year. The program can always use help. Plus, the wet weather made training in some events difficult.
“We didn’t get to practice a few things,” she said.
Despite the challenges, the Tigers had some newcomers who were outstanding.
Sixth-grader Miya Claborn was the top thrower for all three grades for Sweet Home, throwing 68-10 in the discus and 28-9½ in the shot, finishing second among all sixth-graders in the league in both events. Sixth-graders Zach Rivera and Ally Tow posted the top marks in the league in the high jump, in which they equaled the best marks posted by anyone for Sweet Home, Rivera at 4-10 and Tow at 4-4 – both school records.
Kelika Aiona was sixth in the league in the shot among sixth-graders (27-7) and Heather Hamn was fourth in the discus (65-11), with Kayla Miller fifth (64-6) in the final league standings.
Among seventh-graders, Trey Reed posted the fastest time in the league in the boys 400 (58.66), while Tyler Funk was second in the 100 hurdles (17.34)