Sweet Home’s boys put together a strong performance Tuesday, Sept. 30, to win the Junction City Invitational.
Led by Byron Sanders’ third-place finish (17:14.64), the Huskies outscored host Cottage Grove 46-53 to take the team title. Central was third with 69 points, followed by Stayton (81), Wilsonville (120), Elmira (143), Oakridge (173) and Junction City (242).
On the girls side, a strong Central team edged Cottage Grove 53-58, with Sweet Home fourth with 93 points, behind Oakridge (85). Stayton was fifth (107), followed by Elmira (140), Wilsonville (164) and Monroe (191).
“I’m getting myself in trouble for saying this, but they had a good day,” Coach Billy Snow said, chuckling, of the boys. “They ran well. They competed well. I was really looking for them to match up against Central, which happened.”
Behind Sanders for the Huskies, Rob Callagan placed fifth (17:19.15), Dakotah Keys ninth (18:04.84), Jayce Calhoon 14th (18:27.10), Casey Keys 15th (18:28.55), Nikki Smith 24th (18:48.72) and Jake Comstock 25th (18:49.50).
Sam Settelmeyer of Cottage Grove finished first overall in 16:52.48, with Stayton’s Jeremiah Koellmann second in 17:10.59.
Central, led by Javier Orozco in sixth, had the seventh- and eighth-place finishers as well, but the next Panther over was in 22nd place, followed by 26th. “To put our seven ahead of their fifth, that’s pretty good,” Snow said.
He said the Sweet Home boys shown consistency in running this season and he’s expecting that to continue.
“I think they’re smart enough, and we’ve talked about it more than once, that the strength of our team is that we can run towards the front as a group,” he said.
Sweet Home has two more meets, the Philomath Forest Run on Oct. 10 and the Elmira Country Fair Classic on Oct. 15, before the district meet, which will be held Oct. 25 at Camp Tadmor.
The Huskies have trained hard this year, Snow said, and they’ve run tired since the Portland to Coast Relay, which was held the week before the season started.
“We’re getting all this tired,” Snow said. “We haven’t tapered yet. We don’t have as many races (as last year) and we’ve kind of raced our way into shape.”
He said the Elmira race, held on a fast, relatively flat course, will include all the Val-Co teams and will be a good indicator, 10 days before the district meet, of how the Huskies are shaping up.
Snow said a key is the confidence being shown by the boys front runners, particularly Sanders and Callagan.
“Byron is leading the league time-wise, which doesn’t mean much in cross-country,” he said. “But he’s got it in his head that he can run with anyone and he has. With Robby, it’s the same thing.”
Olivia Johnson was the Sweet Home girls’ top finisher, as she has been all year, taking fourth in 21:22.77 behind Patricia Guterrez (20:10.64) and Rita Krantz (20:36.33) of Cottage Grove and Emily Hendricks of Stayton (21:16.71).
Johnson, who placed third in the district championships last year as a freshman in what was a breakout race for her, has quietly maintained her spot as one of the top two runners in the Val-Co Conference this year with Central’s Stacy Martinelli, who finished two seconds behind her at Junction City.
Carissa Swanson was Sweet Home’s second finisher, taking seventh overall in 21:41.02, followed by Jill Mahler (23rd, 24:07.81), Caroline Amendola (32nd, 25:14.11), Jenna Kistner (33rd, 25:57.58), Natasha Perry (37th, 26:43.78) and Sarah Hawkins (41st, 27:13.16).
Behind Marinelli, in fifth Central’s runners finished ninth, 11th, 13th, 15th, 24th and 27th.
Snow said the girls’ challenge is for the third through seventh runners to move up in the standings.
“If we can tighten it up, keep Olivia and Carissa out there and bring the rest up, we’ll move up (in the team results),” he said.
He said that Perry, Amendola and Kistner are showing marked improvement.
“Natasha is really coming along. She’s not afraid to mix things up,” Snow said. “Caroline is starting to run pretty well. She’s right there with Jenna, (who is) running faster than last year.”
The boys junior varsity took second in the 5000-meter race behind Wilsonville, 37-53, with Nick Hall finishing first overall in 18:36.32 and Joe Stroud a few steps behind in second (18:39.29). Chris Thompson was 11th overall (19:43.31), followed by Avery Shamek (18th, 20:13.47), James Myers (21st, 20:24.15), Michael Simmonds (23rd, 20:37.12), Lorenzo Virgen (34th, 22:18.94), Brad Pitts (44th, 23:32.33), Alex Whitlow (46th, 24:19.88), Josh Lowe (50th, 26:16.69), Anson Davis (52nd, 26:19.93) and Conner Cunha (56th, 27.32.10).
Snow noted that Joe Deardorff of Central, one of the key runners in the Panthers’ edging Sweet Home last year out of a team berth at state, ran in the JV race, finishing sixth in 19:07.87 in his second race of the season.
Joe Deardorff ran JV, but two of our kids placed ahead of him.
That’s pretty impressive.
In the girls JV race, Louise Wilcox finished 10th in 38:21.00, with Katelyn Brockman, a newcomer to the team, 11th in 40:33.00.