In Coach Dave Martin’s third year at the helm of the Sweet Home cross-country program, he says things are looking up.
But another way to say that might be that the athletes are looking up.
That’s because this team is full of youngsters – predominantly freshmen and sophomores. After starting three years ago with 12 runners, this year’s total is nearly twice that, even with the departures on the girls side of Rylee Markell to graduation and now-seniors Peyton Markell and Amelia Sullens, who have decided to concentrate on soccer after doubling the last two years.
“The biggest difference, as you take a look at the team, is that we’re so young,” Martin said of this year’s crop of Huskies. “On the boys side we’ll have four sophomores and six freshmen. And so more than half the team on the boys side is really young.
“On the girls side, we have two freshman girls, and most of the rest are juniors. We have one senior girl and two senior boys. But of the senior boys, right now only one has got varsity experience.”
Numbers-wise, the Huskies will be very similar to last year, with eight girls and “15 or 16” boys, which is a little more than the Huskies had in 2023 on the boys side.
“We’re holding very even,” Martin said. “We’re a young team. I’ve been pleased with how that’s going. We’re getting better and better every year by having more and more young people come out.”
Three of Sweet Home’s top competitors last year were freshmen boys and all were first-year cross-country runners. Sophomores Ryker Burr and Conner Spencer “have been running really well” through this summer, Martin said.
They lead a group, that at press time also included seniors Kasey Kast and Boden Sayer; junior Keagan Vogel; sophomores Hunter Clark, Cannon Klumph and Kason Koenig-Walters; and freshmen Eli Adams, Wes Goff, Louis Kistner, Evan Knight, Evan Malabago, Noah Strawn and Acen Webber.
Burr was 13th as a freshman at last year’s cross-country districts, running 18:56.90, literally four-tenths of a second behind Philomath’s Jacob Hernandez, who was the top freshman finisher in the race. After an injury-plagued track season, he’s back and much healthier.
Clark was 22nd in 20:06.50 and Kast was 25th in 20:11.00, with Spencer right behind him in 20:18.10.
However, there is more talent than last year’s cross-country results might suggest. Koenig-Walters was the top freshman in the district 1500 and 3000 last year, finishing seventh in the 1500 as a freshman (4:42.63) , with Clark right behind in eighth (4:44.46) and Vogel ninth in 4:45.98. Walters was sixth in the 3000 (10:29.30), with Vogel eighth (10:38.69).
Kast, one of the senior members of the team, hasn’t had a lot of cross-country experience, but qualified for state in the 800 both as a sophomore and junior, running a personal best of 2:02.50 last May at Hayward Field.
Martin got to see his athletes in their first test of the season Saturday, Sept. 7, at the Darrel Deedon Invite at Cascade, which was postponed from two days earlier due to weather conditions. Rather than running in smoky, high-90s weather, the Huskies had much more moderate temperatures Saturday morning, which probably contributed to faster times. And they were “really successful,” Martin said.
He placed most of his younger runners in the junior varsity 3000, and the boys outscored Cascade, the only other 4A school in the meet and the only other complete team in the race, 26-31. (Cross-country requires five runners to score as a team, with low score, based on order of finishers, winning.)
But in the varsity 5000, Burr was the top underclassmen finisher, fifth in 18:57.23, with Clark 25th in a field of 65 in 21:05.82, and Spencer close behind in 21:43.68.
“We ran a number of outstanding races by kids who had never run a cross-country race before, and our veterans,” Martin said. “Ryker almost equaled his (personal best).
“At the high school level, we’re looking really good without having Kasey or Kason even running yet.”
In the JV race, the Huskies finished 2-3-5-7-12, led by Webber, who ran 11:39.98 in his first cross-country race, and got outleaned at the finish line by Cascade sophomore Joel Gjesdal (11:39.94).
Knight was third for Sweet Home (11:42.33), followed by Malabago (11:58.25), Strawn (12:05.50) and Kistner (12:52.12). Goff was 14th (13:06.81), with Vogel right behind, 16th in 13:22.13. Adams was 19th (13:55.31) and Sayer was 29th (16:51.14).
“Those first six (in the JV race) were all freshmen,” Martin noted. “Eli PR’d by a minute and a half.”
On the girls side, junior McKenzie Miller is “a returning stud,” he said.
Miller was third in the 1500 (5:05.13) and the 3000 (11:16.60), at last spring’s track districts after placing eighth in the 2023 cross-country districts as a sophomore. Like Burr and Spencer, she’s been putting in miles this summer.
Miller, who tended to run alone at the head of the field in many of her competitions last year, will get some help this year from freshman Emma Whitton, who was a front-runner in most of her cross-country and track races last year as an eighth-grader, running a season’s best of 11.49.7 for the 3000 distance in cross-country.
Miller was the top girl in the varsity 5000 at Cascade, running 20:49.39, with Whitton third in 20:59.98.
Martin noted that Miller just missed the PR of 20:42.70 she set at last year’s district race, and Whitton’s opening time for her high school career was 25 seconds faster than the 5K she ran three weeks before at Bush Park in Salem in a pre-season warm-up race.
“They look really good, so I’m excited to see how they’ll stack up against the rest of the league,” Martin said of those two.
They are joined by returnees Natiyah Walters-Koenig, a senior; juniors Rylie Hollingsworth, Annabelle Morris, and Delainie Pratt; sophomore Noelle Helfrich; and newcomer freshman Grace Gardner.
Morris, who is doubling with soccer, was 12th in 25:10.38.
In the girls JV 3000 at Cascade, Gardner was eighth in 15:14.38, followed by Helfrich in 16:54.75 and Hollingsworth in 20:34.68.
Gardner’s time was a little over a minute faster than the 3000 time she set at the Bush Park meet where Whitton ran, Martin noted.
Morris’ time was 2½ minutes faster than the lifetime PR of 27:43 she set last year.
Although Sweet Home Junior High’s cross-country team is separate from the high school’s, according to OSAA rules, the Tigers are competing in nearly all the meets that the high-schoolers are. A number of Tigers turned in top times for the middle school 2000 race at Cascade.
Elijah Rodriguez was the top runner in the boys race, clocking 7:29.40, with Hudson Ogden finishing ninth in the field of 36 runners in his first cross-country race, running 8:31.59. In the girls race, Cassie Spencer was second out of 33 runners, finishing in 8:14.17, with Pyper Hall running 12:22.72 and Alexis Lee 13:06.44, in what was their first cross-country race for both. All are eighth-graders who have trained during the summer. Coaches are hoping to add some seventh-graders to the team this year.
“We had great performances from veterans and a number of people who hadn’t run a cross-country race before, at least for me,” Martin said. “I’m really pleased.”
The Huskies will compete exclusively on Saturdays this season, with their next race on Sept. 14 at Stayton, followed by Sept. 21 in the Northwest Classic at Lane Community College, hosting their home meet Sept. 28 at Sweet Home’s Community Chapel, at the Harrier Classic at Bryant Park in Albany on Oct. 5, at the Paul Mariman Invitational at Philomath on Oct. 12, and winding up their regular season with the Cottage Grove Bramble Scramble on Oct. 19. The district championships are scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 2, at Philomath, followed by the state championships on Nov. 9.
Following last year’s fourth-place finish by the boys, the Oregon West League looks to be tough again in cross-country, as defending district and state boys champion Newport returns its top three runners, who went 1-2-3 at district, led by then-junior Finn Collson. The Cubs and Philomath occupied the top nine spots at last year’s districts.
“Newport and Philomath are very good,” Martin said. “Stayton beat us last year with a team that was like ours – pretty young. And so that’s kind of our bigger focus: let’s move up a notch, from fourth to third. I’m hoping, but I don’t anticipate that yet because Stayton is a good team too.”
On the girls side, the Huskies finished fifth while Philomath won the district and state titles. Stayton also qualified for state and Cascade was third at the district meet.
“Newport and us kind of fought it out for the fourth spot,” Martin said.
“North Marion could be interesting because they had a freshman girl (Macallan Cutsforth) last year who was the state 1500 champ and second in the 800. And her younger sister is going to be a freshman. But they haven’t had a lot of talent besides those two. They could be potentially threatening because they have two very good runners but in cross-country you have to have five. So we’ll see if they can add some more bodies to that.
“On the girls side, because we’ve lost some girls from last year who were varsity runners, I think we’re probably going to take a step backwards on placing on the girls side, even though I expect we’ll run good times. It’s likely we’ll be fourth at best and possibly fifth.”
