Sweet Home’s boys and girls cross-country teams got a rare chance to run close to home Thursday and made it count.
The Huskies competed in the Lebanon Invitational, a meet held at Waterloo Park that Sweet Home has not competed in since 2005.
Both the boys varsity and JV teams won their races in the team competition, out of 12 teams in the varsity race and six in the JV.
Nick Hall was third as the first finisher for the Huskies in the boys varsity race, running 18:01 for the 5,000-meter course, while Olivia Johnson finished sixth for the girls in 21:15.
In the boys races, the Huskies packed themselves together behind Hall, with Byron Sanders finishing sixth (18:20.3), Kyle Hummer ninth (18:35.3), Avery Shamek 12th (18:39.9), Lorenzo Virgen 14th (18:45.1), Casey Keys 22nd (19:35.4) in his first race of the season, and Chris Thompson 23rd (19:38.2).
Creswell sophomore ran 16:50.3 to win the boys varsity race, with Theo Puentes of Newport second in 17:35.5.
The junior varsity boys did the same thing as their teammates, lining up behind Andrew Jiles and Daniel Danforth, who finished 1-2. Jiles, a junior transfer from Lebanon running his first race for the Huskies, led wire to wire to finish in 19:49.7,
while Danforth worked his way through the lead pack in the final mile to nearly catch Jiles in 19:50.6. The rest of the team finished 4-16-20-24-27.
Coach Billy Snow said that kind of grouping made him happy this early in the season.
“Even our sixth and seventh guys were displacing the other teams’ third and fourth guys, which is just amazing,” he said. “Hopefully the guys can see that we don’t have to have the winner in any particular race. We just need to have five guys up front.”
Snow said he predicts that if five or more Huskies can run under 18 minutes by districts, Sweet Home can take the title.
“We’re entering a streak of races where they’re not going to run in the 17s (due to tough, hilly courses), but after we get past these, we’ll see how they do,” he said.
The girls varsity team finished third out of 10 teams, with the Huskies pairing up for most of the race, which Snow also liked.
“What was great was that they’re far enough in their ability levels that they can’t run together, but they broke themselves in neat little packs,” he said. “Having that other person right there pulled all those kids to fast times.
Johnson was followed by Carissa Swanson (11th, 21:36), Caroline Amendola (19th, 23:28), Paige Sanders (22nd, 23:55), Jenna Kistner (28th, 24:39) and Natasha Perry (31st, 24:58).
The girls varsity race was won by Kelley Foley of Crook County in 20:34, followed by Marist’s Allie Sibole (20:46) and freshman Casse Keudell of Regis (20:54).
Jessica Snow, Billy Snow’s daughter, was the top finisher for Sweet Home in the junior varsity race, running 24:50 for ninth in her first high school cross-country race. Jessica Snow, a senior, also plays girls soccer and has decided to run cross-country when the schedules don’t conflict.
The Huskies host the Tadmor Invitational Tuesday at 4 p.m. at Camp Tadmor, then travel to Seaside for the Three Course Challenge Saturday, which is expected to feature some 120 teams from Washington, Oregon and California.