Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
The girls cross-country team came closer than expected to earning a trip to the state meet, placing third at the district meet Friday, Oct. 28, at Bush Park in Salem.
In their last Capital Conference meet, as Sweet Home is moving to 4A District 4 in the realignment of the state high school athletic teams. The Huskies were held off by tough teams from Molalla and Cascade and just missed a chance to run again as a group this Saturday at Lane Community College. The good news for Sweet Home, however, is that its top two runners, Kambria and Cassandra Schumacher, did earn a trip as individuals to the state meet, scheduled at 12:45 p.m. on Saturday at LCC.
The boys did slightly better than expected, but battled some cramps and injuries to finish fourth. The top two teams go to state.
The varsity boys were expected to finish fourth, which they did, but they were able to move up a bit in the final points total, which is based on the placing of each team?s first five finishers. Sisters was first with 50 points, followed by Cascade (62), Mollala (65) and Sweet Home (90).
Jared Swehosky of Stayton ran 15:37 over the 5000-meter course to win by a minute over second-place finisher Jarrett Ziemer of Molalla (16:37).
Peter VanDerlip was the top Husky finisher, in ninth place, with a personal-best 17:42. Jess Keys, Anthony Ertsgaard, and VanDerlip took the pace out hard, passing through the first mile in 5:20, 5:23 and 5:23 respectively with the other four Husky runners about 15-20 seconds back.
?Unfortunately for Anthony, he reaggravated an ankle injury coming down the hill for the first time and he fell off pace from that point on,? Snow said, referring to a steep hill about two-thirds into the race. ?Losing Anthony like that was a swing of about 20 points for us based on how he has been running this year.?
At about the halfway point, Keys and VanDerlip were running ninth and 10th respectively and sophomore Ramiro Santana had separated himself from the rest of the Huskies and moved ahead by about 10 seconds or so with the rest of the pack stringing out.
In the last mile, Keys began to suffer from cramps and had to back off the pace, while VanDerlip battled three Sisters runners and a Mollala runner all the way to the finish line.
?Unfortunately, Peter was barely outkicked, losing seventh place and a trip to state by a mere one second,? Snow noted. VanDerlip?s finish under 18 was a personal-best time for him by 30 seconds and the first time since John Lovik in 2004 that a Sweet Home runner had dropped below 19 minutes for a 5000-neter course.
VanDerlip said he was surprised how fast he was able to run, given the course conditions.
?The last corner was horrible,? he said, speaking of the turn where runners headed into the home stretch.
The Bush Park course was the muddiest Coach Billy Snow could remember.
?I have been going to this meet since the fall of ?94 and it has never been muckier than what I saw today,? he said. ?The fortunate part was that it did not rain during the meet.?
The rain held off until the awards ceremony, when it poured.
VanDerlip said the Huskies gave it their all.
?Overall, I think everyone did well,? he said. ?We left everything out on the course.?
In the girls varsity race, the Huskies finished 10 points higher than expected.
?Going in, we knew we had our work cut out for us to get a top-two finish,? Snow said. ?We?d have to run great and have someone in front of us falter just a bit. We took care of our end of the deal but the top two teams ran well today and held us off.?
Kambria Schumacher?s third-place finish was the highest for a Sweet Home runner since Karly Schra placed second in 1995.
Cassandra Schumacher ran 20:45, to finish in fourth and nine seconds behind her sister for a PR of about 30 seconds. She was seeded 10th coming into the race, Snow said.
?She went out and just hung tough,? Snow said, adding that Cassandra?s effort ?was probably the best race of all the girls from every team.?
Cassandra Schumacher said she was surprised by her finish.
?I didn?t epect to get to state so quick,? she said.
Kambria Schumacher said she was hoping to place second, but thought the race went ?pretty well for the weather conditions and how the course was.?
Linsie Michels of Cascade was first in 19:03, followed by teammate Bernice Soto in 20:19.
Behind the Schumachers, the rest of the Huskies ran tough to cut the 10 points from their form chart finish.
Jessica Trautwein, the Huskies? number three runner all year long, came through the first mile in 6:39 and ?just hung tough the whole race,? Snow said. Trautwein improved her finish this year to 16th from 21st last year.
Senior Heidi Wilson had another peak performance.
?Heidi has pace down and is just a machine when it comes to that aspect of running,? Snow said. ?She hit the mile at 7:11 and at that point was only sixth for us. But Heidi owns the middle of the race and seems to get stronger as the race goes along. She started moving up through the pack and finished in a lifetime best of 23:20 to hold off teammate Julia Henthorne for 21st place.? The two were both clocked at 23:20.
Henthorne and Ashley Danielson ran together for the first two miles, coming through the mile in 6:53. Both girls have had to fight their own private battles this season.
?Julia has had some type of lower leg problem that has limited her training more than she and I would have liked,? Snow said. ?Still, she is running better this season then she has ever run before.
?Ashley developed tendonitis in her knee and missed two to three weeks of running. The last week and half, we just had her testing it out and doing what her leg would let her do. Ashley hung tough and finished in 23:32, just back of Heidi and Julia in 25th place.?
Staci Grove, the Huskies? seventh runner, ran a ?great? race, Snow said. ?Staci has been tired and sore for the last month form lifting and racing. She backed off this last week and she ran her fastest race ever, going under 25 minutes for her first time. Her time of 24:27 was a PR by over 30 seconds.?
The future looks good for the Huskies if everyone comes back, Snow said.
?We lose two great seniors in Anthony and Sam (Bishop, who was leading the junior varsity race until he was forced to drop out with cramps),? he said. ?But we have a solid core group coming back next year to kick off our presence in a new league. This new league will be a very tough cross country league, at least as tough as our current league. We will need to run over the summer to have a base to train off of come fall. We will be looking for some other guys to add to the mix and step up the competition within the team.?
On the girls side, the Huskies will lose four seniors ? Kambria Schumacher, Henthorne, Wilson and Korina Thompson.
?We will return a solid group to rebuild with,? Snow said. ?Our key will be to move our girls up in placing relative to this year and finding some replacements for the girls we are losing.?