The Sweet Home cross-country teams continue to rise above early expectations.
The Huskies hosted their own Sweet Home Invitational on Sept. 20 and then traveled to Newport Saturday, Sept. 24, for the giant Newport Invitational.
Newport Invitational
The Sweet Home girls finished fifth in the Division 3 race ? seven points behind Cascade and ahead of Stayton at Camp Rilea.
The invitational attracted 93 schools and about 2,400 runners, Coach Snow said.
“There are six races total spread over three courses, one hard, one moderate and one easy,” Snow said. “Kids draw to see which course they run and our team score is based on our top two finishers in the medium and easy and top three from the hard.”
Both the hard and medium course have a huge water pit that the kids have to run through.
Snow said results were still sketchy as of Monday but “the kids ran well.”
Each race had between 250 and 350 starters.
On the hard course, Cassandra Schumacher was 49th for the girls, Jessica Trautwein 110th and Heidi Wilson 180th. On the moderate course, Kambria Schumacher was 24th and Staci Grove 195th. On the easy course, Julia Henthorne was 60th, Ashley Danielson 76th, Korina Thompson was 231st and Lacey Hightower 249th.
For the boys, Jess Keys led the way with a 119th place finish on the hard course, followed by Anthony Ertsgaard at 139th and Peter VanDerlip at 145th. On the moderate course, Jake Smith led the way in 163rd, followed by Ramiro Santana at 180 and Sam Bishop (after losing his shoe in the water pit) at 265th. On the easy course, Dallin Holden paced the Huskies with a 100th-place finish followed by Robert at 166th, Adam Kistner at 185th, and Josh Rice at 285th.
Sweet Home Invitational
The big news from Camp Tadmor, where the races were held, was the performance of the Husky girls.
They finished one point behind Philomath, a perennial state powerhouse.
“For us to finish that close to Philomath is amazing,” Snow said. “Philomath is a powerhouse year in and year out, having qulaified for the state meet some 20-plus years in a row.”
Snow said the Camp Tadmor course is slow, thanks to a big hill, some tight turns and uneven ground, so times recorded there can be misleading.
“This year the course was maybe a minute and a half slower than an comparable flat course,” he said. “Despite that the kids turned in some impressive times.”
In the varsity boys race, Philomath finished first with 52 points, followed by Central (68), Newport (93), Sweet Home in fourth with 113, Cottage Grove (149), Stayton (151), LaPine (164), Junction City (189), Pleasant Hill (190) and Creswell, which had an incomplete team.
Out of 63 runners, Kenshin Scoggin finished first in 16:59.4, in a course record by 18 seconds despite missing a turn and losing about 14 seconds, Snow said.
Jess Keys led Sweet Home with a 14th-place finish in 19:13.3, followed by Peter VanDerlip (20th in 20:07 ? a 40-second [personal record), Anthony Ertsgaard (22nd in 20:12 ? 2 minutes faster than last year), Jake Smith (25th in 20:34 ? 1:04 faster than last year), Robert Callagan (41st in 21:39), Dallin Holden, who had been sick with a bad cold (46th in 21:58) and Ramiro Santana right behind Holden in 47th (21:59) for his first 5K.
In the varsity girls race, four of the 10 teams had the required seven finishers among the 44 runners who finished the race.
Philomath, led by first-place finisher Hayley Belli (20:00) was the top team with 36 points, followed by
Sweet Home (37), Stayton (49), Central 99.
Kambria Schumacher was second, behind Belli, in 21:37.3 followed by other Husky finishers Cassandra Schumacher (5th, 22:19.6), Jessica Trautwein (16th, 24:31.8 ? a 2-minute PR), Ashley Danielson (20th, 24:58.1 ? 20 seconds over last year; Heidi Wilson (24th, 25:30.9? 3:30 over last year), Julia Henthorne (26th, 25:39.8, and Staci Grove (34th, 27:15.7 ? 1:40).
“Kambria’s time was only 17 seconds or so off her season best and is the third-fastest ever for girls on that course,” Snow said. “Cassandra was off her fastest by 1 minute and also makes the all time top-10 list for that course.”
The junior varsity boys race, with 35 runners, was won by Philomath (16), Newport (55) and Central (56).
Sam Bishop was the top Husky in 20th place (13:09) over the 3,000-meter course, followed by Adam Kisner, (21, 13:14) and Josh Rice (24th, 14:09).
Philomath (17 points) also won the junior varsity girls race, which had 19 runners. Newport was the other complete- team finisher with 33. Korina Thompson was 13th for Sweet Home (18:27) and Lacey Hightower was 18th (21:46).
The Huskies will be back in action this afternoon, Sept. 28, at Lebanon’s Waterloo Park. Meet time is 4 p.m. On Saturday, Oct. 1, they will travel to Philomath for a noon race.