The Sweet Home High School placed 14th at Saturday’s state cross country meet with four runners finishing better than ever on the course.
The Huskies finished with 313 points, with Justin Temple finishing the 5,000-meter race in 23rd, 17:20; John Lovik, 40th, 17:46; Kyle Temple, 74th, 18:20; Jay Mariner, 105th, 19:10; Robert Couch, 114th, 19:40; Andrew Allen, 116th, 19:48; and Richard Westvik, 117th, 19:51.
“The Capital Conference had a good day,” Coach Dave Martin said. Molalla finished in first with 106 points. The boys and girls 3A champions also were from the Capital Conference, Jeane Goff of Cascade and Chris Hollis of Stayton.
“We’ve always said we’re one of the toughest leagues in the state,” Coach Martin said. “We showed it again.”
Among the Huskies, “Justin, John, Kyle and Jay all had really good races,” Coach Martin said. J. Temple, a senior, finished with his best place and fastest time on the state course at Lane Community College in Eugene, which the Huskies had run two weeks prior at a meet hosted by Creswell.
Lovik was second among freshmen at the state meet. The fastest freshman finished in 14th place. He also placed the second highest among Sweet Home freshmen. Husky Mike Payne finished in 13th place as a freshman in 1990.
Coach Martin was pleased to see Lovik finish under 18 minutes again, something he has done consistently since he broke 18 minutes at the Huskies’ last Waterloo meet.
Sophomore K. Temple didn’t place as high as the Huskies wanted him to, Coach Martin said, but he improved on his previous time on the course, the Creswell meet, by 30 seconds.
Senior Mariner also improved his time on the course by 30 seconds. Mariner was the fourth Husky, a scoring position. Normally, he has not run in scoring positions, finishing primarily sixth or seventh among the Huskies.
Coach Martin wanted Mariner to run at least 19 minutes, but he finished close to that mark.
“The other three (Couch, Allen and Westvik) kind of repeated what happened with our senior girls last week (at the district meet),” Coach Martin said. They had good races, but they were off on their times by 10 to 15 seconds.
“I think those guys gave me their best races last week,” Coach Martin said, but had they not done it then, at districts on Oct. 27, they probably wouldn’t have made it to the state meet Saturday.
Overall, the team missed Coach Martin’s goal of 10th place, reachable only if the entire team had run its best possible race.
“We came a lot further than anybody thought we’d do at the beginning of the year,” Coach Martin said. The Huskies were nobody’s favorites.
Going into the district meet, no one, except Coach Martin, Allen and J. Temple, expected the Huskies to take second behind Molalla and go to state, Coach Martin said. “I thought we could pull it out.”
Coach Martin credits J. Temple and Allen for preparing the team for districts to reach state, giving the team great senior leadership.
“These guys (the team) have given me one of the finest years I’ve ever had as a coach,” Coach Martin said. The Huskies have been consistent in their workouts, their approach to races and response to challenges.
The team’s chemistry changes each year as new runners join the team and seniors graduate, including Allen, J. Temple, Mariner and Jake Dahlenburg, Coach Martin said. “This was a special year.”
Coach looks to returning runners Couch, Temple, Lovik and Westvik to run even better and once again contend for a berth in the state meet.
Coach Martin expects Lovik, the Huskies’ number two runner at the end of the season, to move up and the remaining three to get closer to Lovik at the top end of the team.
“The people at the top will be as good or better than our top (runners) this year,” Coach Martin said. He looks to have two or three runners in the top 12 to 15 places at the district meet next year.
“Any coach in this league would love to have one of these four guys,” Coach Martin said.