With districts two weeks away, the Sweet Home girls cross-country team looked ready to compete for the Val-Co championship, winning the inaugural Rock-N-River Cross-Country Meet hosted by Pleasant Hill Saturday.
The girls slipped by Sisters 72-77 in the nine-team field, led by Olivia Johnson’s third-place finish out of 64 runners.
The boys, missing three regular varsity runners, were sixth out of the 11 teams in the meet.
The course at Elijah Bristow State Park near Dexter was promoted as fast, but it proved less so, thanks to some tight turns and a muddy surface, according to runners and coaches, though the heavy rain predicted for Saturday didn’t fall until immediately after the awards ceremony.
Behind Johnson’s third-place finish in 20:42.3, Carissa Swanson finished sixth in 21:27.5, freshman Paige Sanders was 18th in 23:17.9, Caroline Amendola was 21st in 23:25.6 and right behind in 24th was the Huskies fifth scorer, Jessie Snow, in 24:11.8. Jenna Kistner was 33rd in 25:11.6 as the Huskies’ sixth finisher and Natasha Perry was 42nd in 26:49.1.
Patricia Guterrez of Cottage Grove was first in the girls race, in 1953.2, followed by Katie Romanko of North Bend in 20:08.0.
Behind Sweet Home and Sisters, Marshfield was third with 94 points, followed by Cottage Grove (108), and Philomath, which was competing without its top runner, Annie Marinello, who likely would have placed first (127)).
“I thought the girls competed well,” Coach Billy Snow said. “It’s unfortunate that Philomath didn’t have their top girl and another dropped out along the way.”
Snow calculated that even if Merinello had run and even with a “real sub-par” performance from Amendola, the Huskies still would have beaten the Warriors by several points.
“We’re right in the ballpark,” he said.
Nick Hall was eighth overall in the boys race to finish first for the Huskies, running 17:43.2.
“Olivia and Nick had great times,” Snow said, noting that both had season PR’s on a course that wasn’t all that fast.
Byron Sanders was second for the boys, 18th in the field of 77 runners, clocking 18:39.0; Andrew Jiles was 38th (19:24.1); Chris Thompson was 40th (19:31.2)l; and Daniel Danforth rounded out the Huskies’ scoring in 44th place (19:42.9). Jake Comstock (51st, 20:09.1) and Casey Keys (52nd, 20:14.5), both recovering from injuries, ran sixth and seventh for Sweet Home.
The Husky boys were short three key runners: junior Kyle Hummer, who is injured; and sophomores Avery Shamek and Lorenzo Romar, who have been academically ineligible for the past two races,
Pleasant Hill won the team title by placing its first five runners in the top 20 for 56 points, followed by Sisters, which had the first three finishers in the race en route to 72 points: Parker Bennett was first in 16:17.2; Taylor Stede was second in 17:01.1 and Seth Schneider placed third in 17:02.3.
Marshfield was third (78); Philomath fourth (88) behind leading Val-Co finisher Jeff Schreiner-McGraw, who was seventh in 17:30.2.
Brett King was the top finisher for Sweet Home in the boys junior varsity race, taking 17th in 20:53.3, a step ahead of teammate Nene Mauer (20:53.8). Anson Davis was was 29th (21:32.2), David Rinehart 39th (22:57.5), Joe Stroud 41st (23:04.4); Jason Rice 45th (23:04.4) and Mitchell Garcia 73rd (36.27.5).
Emily Egbert finished 11th to lead the Huskies in the girls JV race, in 26:53.0, with her sister Liz Egbert a step behind in 12th (26:54.8) and Taylar Rodgers 27th in 32:37.5.
The Huskies will run Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 21, at Elmira’s Country Fair Classic at the Country Fair grounds in Veneta, which is expected to feature some 20 4A schools, including all of the Val-Co teams, on what is usually a very fast course that often produces season and lifetime PR’s. Races start at 3:45 p.m..
“We’ll go to Elmira and then just taper for districts,” Snow said. “We’ll see if we can put it together.”