The Country Fair Classic always is a fast race, but for Sweet Home’s cross-country runners, it was a special day Wednesday, Oct. 19, as nearly every Husky posted personal bests.
“We had PRs like crazy,” Coach Billy Snow said.
With all the Sky-Em teams except La Pine at the meet, it was also a chance for the Huskies to gauge how they match up to the rest of the league going into the district race at Lane Community College on Oct 27.
Sisters placed second in both the boys and girls races, but Sweet Home was second among Sky-Em teams on both sides. The Husky boys were eighth, with Cottage Grove placing 12th, and the girls were 15th, with Cottage Grove 21st.
Marshfield was the top team in the boys, while Newport’s Theo Puentes led, basically, wire to wire to edge out teammate Deklyn Wood, a junior soccer player who also is running cross-country this season, by eight seconds, in 15:55.7.
Marist won the girls team race, while Sheldon junior Maggie Schmaedick ran shoulder-to-shoulder with Hidden Valley’s Sierra Brown until the final 100 meters, when she found another gear and edged Brown by two seconds, in 18:19. Sisters’ Zoe Falk was third, in 19:06.
Sweet Home’s Nicole Rasmussen was eighth in 19:24.0, a 26-second PR, but she got caught in the crowd early in the race and fell behind the leaders and couldn’t make up the distance at the end. Paige Sanders was 35th in 21:11.00, a 14-second PR.
“I never like losing, but in a roundabout way that might work to her advantage if she learns from that,” Snow said of Rasmussen’s experience.
He said both Rasmussen and Sanders will have an easier time figuring out where they need to be when they get to the district race, because they won’t be in a big crowd like at Elmira. Snow also said he believes Sanders can run faster.
“She just needs to go out faster,” he said. “On a good day, she should be fifth in the district.”
Sweet Home’s girls ran without Sarah Wyatt, who is recovering from an injury suffered during the Homecoing powderpuff football game and was held out Wednesday.
Daniel Danforth was the top Husky to place, taking fifth in the boys race in 16:49.80) – a 20-second PR and his first time under 17 minutes in a cross-country 5K race.
The course actually ended up being 100 feet short, according to a GPS check later, organizers said, but that would likely add only several seconds to the top boys runners.
Danforth, a junior, battled Sisters sophomore Brandon Pollard down the home stretch Wednesday, finally leaving Pollard behind with a final surge with about 100 meters to go.
“That was fun to watch,” Snow said. “If that kid would put in the time and do all the little things, man, there’s a lot of untapped talent there. He’s a competitive person. He showed it there. Hopefully this lights a fire for him.”
Freshman Jakob Hiett was close behind, in 13th in 16:58.08 – a 37-second PR that makes him the second-fastest freshman over the 5000-meter distance thus far this season in the 4A division.
“That was a pretty incredible run for a freshman,” Snow said. “He just kind of sticks his nose in there and keeps going.”
Nick Hall was 22nd, in 17:13.70, running under orders from Snow to back off for the first part of the race.
The pack of sophomores, who have run as a group in recent races, did it again, except they all dropped below 20 minutes and registered nice PRs in the process.
Ian Wingo was 131st in 19:31.20, a 30-second PR; Nick Mattson was 133rd in 19:35.10, a 19-second PR; and David Johnson was 134th in 19:37.60, a 30-second PR.
On the girls side, Kimber Swanson finished 101st in 23:07.00, a 61-second PR, and Tashana Mithen was 117th in 25:13.00, a 1:10 PR.
“That was a big drop for her,” Snow said.
AnneMarie Miller finished 153rd in 26.56 after starting slow, then picking up speed through the last two-fifths of the race.
“I think AnneMarie can run in the low 25s or high 24s,” he said.
Trysta Lewelling, coming off an injury, was 158th in 28:07.00, and Laura Hoy was 162nd in 28:40.00.
In the combined JV race, Trever Melson posted a PR of 1:30, finishing in 26:01.
“What a run for that little kid,” Snow said. “It was just a great little run.”
Candalynn Johnson ran 30:17 for an 11-second PR and Sierrah Owen cut 5:47 off her former best time for the distance, running 30:18.
Snow said there are question marks for the Huskies going into the district race, which is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27,
“The girls, without Sarah, handled all the other teams pretty easily,” he said. “The boys, it was good to see them being competitive.”
He said the boys will have two “big keys” going into the race: the top three have to run well and the three sophomores need to move up, en masse. Snow said he’s not sure about Cottage Grove’s boys team, which, according to coaches at the Elmira meet, has had some injuries.
The Huskies can only control their own destinies.
“They’ve been running well and they’ve dropped their times,” he said. “If they could move up as a pack… They’re the bubble team.”