It’s been a short track and field season this year, thanks to OSAA scheduling, and now it’s showtime for the Huskies.
Sweet Home ended its regular season last Wednesday, May 7, with a “Last Chance Meet” at home against a field of smaller schools – Harrisburg, Triangle Lake, Pleasant Hill, Salem Academy, Monroe and Willamina. The hosts won both the boys and girls team competitions in what was a warm-up for the Sky-Em district meet, which starts Thursday, May 15, at Elmira High School and continues on Saturday. Most of the finals take place Saturday.
So how do the young Huskies stack up, especially on the boys side?
“We’re not the strongest,” Coach Billy Snow said. “We have a lack of depth on the girls side. But what we’ve got is great kids, no qualms about that. We’ve got a lot of kids right on the bubble. We’ll see if they can go on to the next step.
Elmira will have home field advantage and its boys have plenty of speed, but Snow thinks his boys team won’t be far behind.
“On paper I think we score in every event and that’s usually pretty good,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect Elmira to fall apart at home and if anybody fell apart, they’d have to do it in the right event. There would have to be a set of fortunate circumstances.”
Following a home meet last Wednesday, dubbed the “Last Chance Meet,” the Huskies have a number of athletes poised near the top of the league, if not the 4A division.
Jakob Hiett has top-four 4A times in the 800, 1500 and 3000, and will concentrate on the latter two in the district. Hiett is 11 seconds behind his buddy Brandon Pollard of Sisters in the 1500 (4:07.12) , but 10 seconds ahead of Pollard in the 3000 (8:49.74).
In the sprints, Spencer Knight is No. 1-seeded in the 100 (by 100th of a sec over Bo Highburger of Elmira.
In the shot, Ben Terry has showed consistent improvement all season and has also begun to move up the ranks in the discus. His best shot mark puts him nearly three feet ahead of the nearest competition, Elmira’s Highburger, and junior teammate Brycen Mitten is lurking not far behind, just a foot behind Highburger.
The javelin shapes up to be a tight competition, with Cottage Grove’s Darren Voigt leading the pack going into the district meet with a throw of 163-2. Two Huskies are in the top four – senior Kyle Rose in third, a few feet behind Justin Petz of La Pine (156-10 to 155-3), with Mitten a few feet back at 153-7.
“In the boys javelin, anyone in the top 10 can win it,” Snow said.
In the high jump, Ashton Stutzman is second in the HJ behind Jake McAlister of Sisters (6-3 to 6-1).
Stutzman’s younger brother Dillon, a freshman, is tied for third in the pole vault with Joseph Petz of La Pine, behind Elmira’s Jeff Linn (12-6 to 12-0). La Pine sophomore Justin Petz is far and away the favorite at 15-9.
In the long jump, sophomore Egan Shamek, who just started competing this year in high school track, has worked his way into the Sky-Em lead in the long jump by 2 inches over McAllister of Sisters (20-11¼).
Both the girls and boys short relays go in seeded third, which is also where the boys 4×400 team is, but the girls, in particular, will be shooting for their seventh straight trip to state, so the question is whether they can get their handoffs and timing nailed down and cut the two-tenths of a second by which they currently trail Sisters going into the district meet.
On the girls side, Haley Kent is second in the 200 (27.18), ahead of Natalie Ambrose of Sisters (27.28), but well behind Ahsha Mootz of Cottage Grove (25.88), who is the leader in all three sprints.
Courtney Kent is first in the 300 hurdles (47.76), about one-tenth of a second ahead of Jamilla Gambee of Junction City.
Senior distance star Nicole Rasmussen will be shooting for her fourth-straight trip to state in the 3000, but she’s going to have plenty of competition this year.
Rasmussen is fourth in the 1500 going into districts, seven seconds behind rival Zoe Falk, with Cottage Grove’s Breanna Wright and Sisters’ Aria Blumm in between. Rasmussen is third in the 3000, with a PR of 11:06.39 from the Last Chance meet, behind Blumm (10:50.38) and Wright (10:59.70).
“She’s in a tough league,” Snow said. “This is going to be the hardest year yet.”
But he said if Rasmussen stays with the leaders, she will be in those races.
In the field, Josie Knight is fourth in the shot, but her best throw of the season is only 3½ inches behind second-seeded Noemi Gomez of Junction City (32-2), who posted that last week.
In the triple jump, Haley Kent is first by an inch over Alissa Likens of La Pine and Brittnie Haigler of La Pine, who are tied at 32-11.
The Huskies don’t have to be spectacular – just steady, Snow said.
“They don’ need to do anything special. They don’t have to set a new world record or a new Sweet Home record or anything else. At the end of the day, when we look back at the results, there is not going to be anything remarkable.
“We just want our kids to do as well as they can. We want them to go through the sequence of their events and do the same thing they’ve been doing. ‘You’ve done it a hundred times. Know your competition, be where you’re supposed to be and be ready for that move.’”
On the girls side, he sees Cottage Grove and Sisters as the favorites.
“They just have depth,” he said. “I just don’t see anybody catching them.
“It will be fun. If we get our guys in second and moving toward first, that would be awesome. If we can get our girls in the top three, I’ll be delighted.”
Sweet Home Last Chance Invitational
Top Three and Sweet Home Finishers
Personal Best*
Boys Results
Team Scores – (1) Sweet Home 160; (2) Harrisburg 65; (3) Triangle Lake 35; (4) Pleasant Hill 34; (5) Salem Academy 23; (6) Monroe 19; (7) Willamina 10.
100 – (1) Trey Reed (SH) *11.88; (2) Kamryn Pierzina (PH) 11.92; (3) Chase Parker (TL) 11.93; (7) Matt Davis (SH) *12.21; (8) Nick Rietz (SH) *12.24; (12) Justin Carpenter (SH) *12.42; (20) Wes Parker (SH) *13.39; (23) Oscar Hernandez (SH) *13.83; (24) Brenton Clark (SH) *14.80.
200 – (1) Spencer Knight (SH) *23.73; (2) Trey Reed (SH) *23.95; (3) Kamryn Pierzina (PH) 24.20; (4) Chace Hutchins (SH) *25.05; (6) Nick Rietz (SH) 25.52; (16) Wes Parker (SH) *28.20; (17) Oscar Hernandez (SH) *29.78.
400 – (1) Chad Steinhauer (TL) 53.33; (2) Chace Hutchins (SH) *54.61; (3) Hunter Knox (H) 55.31.
800 – (1) Jakob Hiett (SH) 1:56.92; (2) Julian Hesberg (SH) *2:17.47; (3) Cameron Owen (H) 2:18.02; (4) Issac Justham (SH) *2:19.42; (5) Joseph Rasmussen (SH) *2:20.06; (7) Robert Gourley (SH) *2:23.80; (12) Spenser Spencer (SH) 2:32.57.
1500 – (1) Ian Wingo (SH) 4:44.58; (2) Issac Justham (SH) *4:50.68; (3) Julian Hesberg (SH) *4:52.40; (5) Robert Gourley (SH) *4:57.77; (8) Spenser Spencer (SH) 5:20.05.
3000 – (1) Ian Wingo (SH) 10:20.57; (2) Connor Metzger (TL) 10:46.72; (3-tie) Aaron Mann (H), Anthony Sabintino (H) 11:29.30.
110 Hurdles – (1) Eric Flierl (SH) 16.87; (2) Matt Davis (SH) 17.66; (3) Zach Phelps (H) 17.97;
300 Hurdles – (1) Matt Davis (SH) *43.62; (2) Carver Hurd (H) 47.08; (3) Bo Kelson (H) 47.81; (6) TJ Baham (SH) 48.23.
4×100 Relay – (1) Sweet Home (Eric Flierl, Egan Shamek, Trey Reed, Spencer Knight) 45.56; (2) Pleasant Hill 46.67; (3) Triangle Lake 47.75; (4) Monroe 48.35; (5) Sweet Home “B” (Justin Carpenter, Tucker Porter, Dillon Stutzman, Nick Rietz) 48.70; (5) Willamina 57.31.
4×400 Relay – (1) Sweet Home (Eric Flierl, Trey Reed, TJ Baham, Chace Hutchins) 3:40.03; (2) Triangle Lake 3:47.22; (3) Monroe 3:56.36; (4) Harrisburg 3:59.75.
Shot Put – (1) Ben Terry (SH) *49-0; (2) Jovani Garcia (M) 43-10; (3) Brycen Mitten (SH) 43-3; (26) Patrick Bell (SH) 29-11½; (36) Eric Whitlow (SH) 24-4; (37) Kyle Laster (SH) 21-3; (40) Raymond Moore (SH) 18-5.
Discus – (1) Steven Quirk (PH) 141-0; (2) Riley Boardman (W) 128-6; (3) Jacob Baker (PH) 124-10; (6) Ben Terry (SH) 108-0; (19) Gavin Baskin (SH) *79-6; (23) Evan Feigum (SH) 75-3; (28) Eric Whitlow (SH) 67-3; (33) Raymond Moore (SH) 56-0; (35) Kyle Laster (SH) 35-9.
Javelin – (1) Avery McMillan (H) 150-7; (2) Kyle Rose (SH) 150-5; (3) Brycen Mitten (SH) 149-11; (8) Garrison Whitfield (SH) *134-9; (20) Charlie Guerrero (SH) 104-1; (22) Gavin Baskin (SH) 102-7; (24) Egan Shamek (SH) 101-8; (31) Tyler Fincher (SH) 86-4; (38) Evan Feigum (SH) 62-2.
High Jump – (1) Alex Churchman (PH) 5-8; (2) Chad Steinhauer (TL) 5-6; (3) Leo Boardman (W) 5-4; No Sweet Home competitors.
Pole Vault – (1-tie) Dillon Stutzman (SH), Zach Phelps (H), Travis Waggener (H), Hunter Jelden (H) 10-6; (5) TJ Baham 10-0.
Long Jump – (1) Egan Shamek (SH) 20-1¼; (2) Hayden Wilkinson (TL) 19-6; (3) Morgan Strunk (SA) 19-1; (5) Spencer Knight (SH) 18-7½; (10) Tucker Porter (SH) 16-11½; (16) Charlie Guerrero (SH) 15-0; (18) Brenton Clark (SH) *14-5¾.
Triple Jump – (1) Morgan Strunk (SA) 40-2; (2) Egan Shamek (SH) 38-0¼; (3) Kendall Seitzinger (M) 37-4; (8) Tucker Porter (SH) 34-8½; (10) Brenton Clark (SH) *32-2; (12) Charlie Guerrero (SH) 30-7.
Girls Results
Team Scores – (1) Sweet Home 85; (2) Pleasant Hill 76; (3) Salem Academy 62; (4) Harrisburg 43; (5) Monroe 28; (6) Willamina 20; (7) Triangle Lake 14.
100 – (1) Megan Miller (PH) 12.91; (2) Carrisa Bottensek (TL) 13.38; (3) Brianna Hansen (SA) 13.63; (5) Natasha Rasmussen (SH) *14.04; (6) Sarah Dunkley (SH) *14.08; (14) Lilly Parker (SH) *14.67; (15) Kiesha Goble (SH) *14.74; (22) Allison Wickline (SH) *15.11; (23) Ashley Wickline (SH) 15.49; (29) Mickaela Batchelor (SH) *16.21; (30) Maria Daniels (SH) *16.42; (31) Megan Oberg (SH) *16.46; (32) McKenna Ashton (SH) *16.47; (33) Mami Sakamoto (SH) *16.52; (34) Natasha Benson (SH) *17.14; (35) Linh Vu (SH) *17.70; (36) Wanrada Puangmalai (SH) 18.43.
200 – (1) Megan Miller (PH) 26.99; (2) Jessica Brown (H) 27.85; (3) Madison Fisher (PH) 28.42; (4) Josie Knight (SH) *28.51; (7) Natasha Rasmussen (SH) 29.71; (9) Lilly Parker (SH) *30.96; (12) Allison Wickline (SH) *32.28; (13) Ashley Wickline (SH) 32.58; (15) Mikaela Batchelor (SH) *34.21; (16) Makenna Ashton (SH) *34.94; (19) Mami Sakamoto (SH) 36.93.
400 – (1) India Porter (SH) 1:06.16; (2) Jordan Miller (SH) 1:07.92; (3) Kaitlyn Rictor (M) 1:08.12.
800 – (1) Jessie Brownell (SA) 2:42.02; (2) Kayleen Keeney (SH) 2:43.07; (3) Kaitlyn Rictor (M) 2:44.41; (4) Sierra Swanson (SH) *2:45.06; (7) Maria Daniels (SH) 3:14.06; (8) Sierrah Owen (SH) *3:39.28.
1500 – (1) Kayleen Keeney (SH) *5:33.12; (2) Emma Boys (PH) 5:34.89; (3) Margie Flores (H) 6:24.04; (5) Sierrah Owen (SH) *7:19.86.
3000 – (1) Nicole Ramussen (SH) *11:06.39; (2) Shelby Jenkins (SA) 12:43.06; (3) Amanda Dardis (SA) 12:50.70.
100 Hurdles – No Sweet Home Competitors.
300 Hurdles – No Sweet Home Competitors.
4×100 Relay – (1) Sweet Home (Courtney Kent, Haley Kent, India Porter, Josie Knight) 51.79; (2) Pleasant Hill 52.91; (3) Triangle Lake 53.73; (4) Harrisburg 54.38; (5) Monroe 56.85; (6) Sweet Home “B” (Sarah Dunkley, Kiesha Goble, Ashley Wickline, Allison Wickline) 57.30; (7) Willamina 59.55; (8) Salem Academy 1:03.02.
4×400 Relay – No Sweet Home Competitors.
Shot Put – (1) Allison Smith (PH) 34-11; (2) Sadi Sutton (M) 32-2; (3) Drea Grijalva (W) 30-9½; (5) Josie Knight (SH) 30-4; (12) Kaitlyn Watts (SH) 25-10; (20) Emily Ramsey (SH) 21-9; (21) Sadie Gordon (SH) 21-6½; (25) Hailey Dellinger (SH) *20-1; (27) Shelby Dinsfriend (SH) 18-10; (29) Alexi Chase (SH) 9-8.
Discus – (1) Moria Hamtil (PH) 104-6; (2) Sadie Gordon (SH) 96-8; (3) Whitney Anderson (W) 95-2; (6) Kaitlyn Watts (SH) 90-2; (12) Adriana Perez (SH) 66-9; (15) Shelby Dinsfriend (SH) *63-10; (17) Natasha Benson (SH) 62-06; (21) Emily Ramsey )SH) *60-8; (29) Shania Baxter (SH) 49-10; (30) Hailey Dellinger (SH) 35-11; (31) Alexi Chase (SH) 17-10.
Javelin – (1) Dana Brooks (PH) 117-4; (2) Kayla Bateman (M) 103-4; (3) Hannah Mather (SH) *102-8; (4) Amanda Hubbard (SH) 96-11; (6) Jordan Miller (SH) 93-0; (13) Shania Baxter (SH) 71-10; (20) Ivy Weidner (SH) 47-2.
High Jump – (1) Kasey Anderson (W) 5-0; (2) Sierra Briggs (H) 4-10; (3-tie) Bailee Davis (TL), Briannon Barrett (PH), Baylee Kushel (H), Shelby Jenkins (SA) 4-8; (7) Sierra Swanson (SH) *4-6.
Pole Vault – (1) Karissa Standridge (SA) 10-4; (2) Kayla Bateman (M) 7-6; (3) Dana Hiett (SH) 6-6.
Long Jump – (1) Madison Fisher (PH) 15-4; (2) Jessica Brown (H) 15-1; (3-tie) Bailee Davis (TL), Brianna Hansen (SA) 14-4; (6) Alex Olin (SH) 13-0½; (9) Kiesha Goble (SH) 12-10; (15) Sadie Gordon (SH) 11-9½; (18) Kaitlyn Watts (SH) *11-3½; (22) Megan Oberg (SH) 10-10; (23) Mami Sakamoto (SH) *10-4½; (24) Wanrada Puangmalai (SH) 10-3½.
Triple Jump – (1) Haley Kent (SH) 32-11; (2) Elisabeth Sepulveda (H) 27-7; (3) Alex Olin (SWH) 27-6.