So how good are the Huskies in cross-country?
The tale of the tape will be Wednesday, Oct. 21, at the Sky-Em District Championships.
Sweet Home ran its final tune-up race Wednesday, Oct. 14, at the Country Fair Classic, bringing home a slew of personal- and season-best times, but Coach Andrew “Keebler” Allen said the Huskies still haven’t hit their peak.
“The conditions were warm and the driest we’ve ever seen it,” he said of last Wednesday’s race, which is held on the Country Fair grounds outside of Elmira. “I think that affected a couple of kids. Those are ones who have been having more trouble. We typically do better in cool weather.”
Another factor, he said, is that the Huskies didn’t get the summer mileage that other teams in the league, between conflicts, trips and injuries and other reasons.
The meet drew 26 boys teams, with Sheldon edging South Eugene 66-69 in the team scoring. Newport was the top 4A boys team, finishing seventh with 216 points, with Elmira right behind in eighth (254) and Junction City 11th (333). Sweet Home was 17th with 479 points, led by Trey Reed in 54th place out of 214 runners, in 17:51, a season’s best time for him over the 5,000-meter distance. Julian Hesberg edged teammate Tanner Sayers, finishing 114th in 18:57, also a season’s best, with Sayers 115th, six-tenths of a second behind. Noah Dinsfriend was close behind, 117th in 19:01, followed by Noah Taraski, 138th in 19:33; Kobe Olson, 152nd in 19:52; Ricky Yunke, 160th in 20:00; Joe Rasmussen, 184th in 21:27; Nelson Rodgers, 187th in 21:34 and Allen Cuilla, 189th in 21:42. Those were all-time bests for Sayers, Dinsfriend and Olson, for all of whom this is their first year in high school cross-country, as well as for Taraski, a sophomore.
“We had a lot of season PR’s including some lifetime bests,” Allen said. “That was a great performance by Noah Taraski, who we moved up to varsity because we were allowed 10 runners in this race. He finished fifth for us, with a 50-second PR, which was surprising, considering his legs were dead from a search and rescue he participated in on Monday.
“The freshmen have bene stepping it up. Tanner is typically our second man until Julian comes up behind him at the end of the race.”
In the girls race, Sheldon (27 points) and South Eugene (65) were tops out of 21 teams. Junction City was eighth, with 237 points, ahead of Elmira (13th, 397) and Cottage Grove (14th, 414) with Sweet Home 18th (454), just ahead of Sutherlin (466).
Bethany Gingerich was first in for the Huskies, 90th out of 175 runners in 22:56, with Sierra Swanson right behind, 91st in 22:59. Kayleen Keeney was 109th in 23:50, Dana Hiett was 148th in 25:51; Maria Daniels was 166th in 26:59 and Faith Black was 174th in 31:49. For all but Black, those were season-best times.
“Sierra continues to push Bethany,” Allen said. “Kayleen had more of a rougher race. She seems to do better on tougher courses. Maria continues to improve. She’s looking stronger, and I hope to get a good one from her going into district. And Dana had a season-best of over a minute. We saw flashes of her old self.”
In the boys JV race, Nick Rietz led the Huskies, finishing 149th out of 256 runners in 21:42; with Cameron Taber 156th in 21:50; Nick Tolman 177th in 22:31; Sean Wolthuis 203rd in 23:59 – a PR by some 45 seconds; Jake Hindmarsh 225th in 24:56; and Christian Baham 249th in 30:06.
Allen said Taber, in particular, has been a bright spot on the team.
“The testament on our team is the JV runners like Cameron have been working out,” he said. “Cameron is running out of his mind. He put the time in.”
The Huskies will find out how far they’ve come Wednesday, Oct. 21, at the Sky-Em District Championships held at Lane Community College. Races begin at 2 p.m. with the varsity girls.
The reality is that the girls team is running for third place, barring some miracle, Allen said.
“If they pull off third, they finish on high note. Sisters is ranked third in the state and Junction City is having great season. All the pieces came together at the right time for them.”
The Tigers have a number of soccer players doubling over, to give them the depth that Sweet Home doesn’t have this year, and one of their runners is the coach’s daughter, who has recruited her friends.
“They kind of came up together,” Allen said.
On the boys side, it will come down to how bad the Huskies want a state berth – individually or as a team.
“The guys are definitely the dark horse,” Allen said. “Other teams put in more mileage than our guys did. Are we completely out of it? No, but we will have to work our tail off.”
Reed goes into the boys race with the eighth-fastest time in the league, but his Country Fair time was a nearly 30-second improvement for the season and Allen said he can run faster. Reed finished about 20 seconds behind Junction City’s Benjamin Swancutt and Ryan Meighan at Country Fair and was nearly a minute behind Elmira’s Ben Douthit and Shane Orme.
“Trey has a chance as individual. He is going to have to beat the Junction City boys. If we put our second through five in front of Junction City’s and Sisters’ No. 3, our team can do it. We have to stay in contact and turn it on in mile 2.
“We have to see what our boys decide to do. We’re seeing improvement in PRs and stuff, but the fact is Sisters, Junction City and Elmira trained this summer.”