Jakob Hiett won his second straight cross-country meet Wednesday, Sept. 11, beating a boys varsity field of 123 to win the Silver Falls Invitational at Silver Falls State Park.
Hiett led the boys race early on, establishing a solid lead by the mile mark en route to running 20:22 on the 5,200-meter course, which includes “The Monster,” a steep climb of approximately half a mile.
“He’s running well right now,” Coach Billy Snow said of Hiett. “He kind of expects to be in the mix of any race he gets into. He’s running smart, not going out too fast like he did last year. I told him, ‘You’d better know the course’ every place he goes because he expects to be in front,” referring to the tendency of front-runners to miss turns on some cross-country courses, which often are marked with ribbons, cones or chalk on the ground.
In the girls varsity race, Nicole Rasmussen was fourth in a field of 96 after passing about a dozen runners in the last half of the race to finish in 26:26.5. Sierra Swanson was 31st, running 30:27.7.
For the boys, Ian Wingo, running with a sore leg, was 35th overall in 23:47.3; Chace Hutchins was 45th in 24:15.2; Stephen Bishop was 53rd in 25:06.3; and Issac Justham was 63rd, running 26:15.3 after getting boxed in on the narrow trails of the course.
East Linn Christian won both the boys and girls varsity team titles. The Eagles, with fifth runner Donny Arndt of Sweet Home 40th overall in 23:58.8, scored 28 points to beat runner-up Silverton (50) and Philomath (78). Lebanon was seventh (106), Sweet Home was 10th (119), Junction City 15th (208) and Cottage Grove 18th (248). Snow said the Huskies would have been fifth in the large-school division. Team scores were calculated based on whether a school was in the small-school (1A through 3A) or large school (4A and 5A) division.
East Linn’s girls scored 29 points to beat Philomath (40), Catlin Gabel (43) and Lebanon (48). The Eagles’ Sara Helfrich, of Sweet Home, was 34th overall.
Sweet Home did not have the necessary five runners to compete in the team race at either the varsity or JV levels. Cottage Grove was 10th (172), despite sophomore Brianna Wright’s eighth-place finish (26:28.7) and Junction City was 11th (185).
Snow noted that some of his runners, in addition to Rasmussen, made up significant ground on other competitors from the Sky-Em Conference.
“Nicole, Sierra, Chace and Stephen had a really good second half to the race,” he said. “I’m not sure what to attribute that to – whether they didn’t go out too fast and ran smart that way, or because they did well on the hills due to the type of workouts we’re doing. They made up lot of ground. I was kind of watching the Junction City and Cottage Grove kids. There were a ton of them in front and in the end, it was just Brianna.”
In the 3,200-meter (two-mile) junior varsity girls race, freshman Dana Hiett led three Sweet Home runners to finish ninth in 19:04.0. Kaylene Keeney was 26th in 20:54.3 and Maria Daniels finished 51st in 24:45.7.
The Sweet Home JV boys were led by Robert Gourley, who finished 18th in 16:35.0. Right behind him was Joseph Rasmussen, in 19th place (16:39.8), followed by Julian Hesberg in 21st (16:46.2), Aaron Blanchard in 42nd (18:13.4) and freshman Nick Tolman in 46th (18:21.2).
“Every time we get in a meet with other teams from our league, we have to look at what they have. We respect every team but we don’t fear any of them. I think we’re competitive with Cottage Grove and Junction City and eventually we’ll see Sisters and La Pine and see where we stand.”
The Huskies will see Sisters and La Pine at their next meet, the Three Course Challenge on Saturday, Sept. 21, at Camp Rilea north of Seaside. But that competition may not tell them much, since runners are divided into three different races on “easy,” “moderate” and “difficult” courses, which all involve running on sand hills and through mud holes. The main differences are in distance. The meet will include nearly 100 high school teams from as far away as California, with about a third coming from Washington. In addition to Sisters and La Pine, Cottage Grove and Junction City are both scheduled to be there.
It also includes a middle school competition that will feature runners from 14 schools, including Sweet Home Junior High.
All six Sky-Em teams are expected to be at the Harrier’s Challenge, held the following Thursday, Sept. 26, at Dorena Lake in Cottage Grove’s Schwartz Park, which, Snow said, will be a more uniform opportunity to see how the Huskies measure up.
“At (Harrier’s Challenge) we will see everybody. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a hard or easy course, as long as it’s on the same course.”