Sweet Home’s cross-country teams have hinted during the early season that they might be capable of rising above early expectations.
Now is the time to see if they can deliver on that early promise, according to Coach Billy Snow.
Both teams did relatively well in their only meet last week, the Lebanon Invitational at Waterloo Park.
The girls finished fourth out of 10 teams, most of them from the 4A level. The Huskies lost one of their middle runners, Ashley Danielson, after the first mile, to a sore leg.
Sheldon ran a dominant race, placing four runners in the top six, out of 62 runners. Crescent Valley followed, with Wilsonville and Sweet Home in the next two spots.
“Our girls had another good day, despite not having Ashley Danielson up to par, ” Snow said. “All had a season PR except for Julia (Henthorne), who went out too fast.”
Kambria Schumacher was the top finisher for Sweet Home, breaking 21 for the first time to cover the 5000-meter course in 20:50.05 for seventh place. Jessica Trautwein broke into the 23’s (23:12.18) and Heidi Wilson into the 24’s (24:14.16), right behind Henthorne, who ran 24:04.43. Cassandra Schumacher was second for the Huskies in 21:25.50 in 12th place. Staci Grove was Sweet Home’s final finisher in 25:11.92.
Getting to the state meet may be possible for the girls, but “I think we need to make a couple of big steps,” Snow said, including both Schumachers getting into the 20s and the other Huskies dropping their times proportionately. ”
We’ll seem” Snow said. “We’ll see.”
The Huskies will run at Philomath on Saturday, a meet that will include several Capital Conference teams. That should be a good indicator of where they are, Snow said.
The boys placed seventh out of 10 teams, as Jess Keys led the Huskies with a 31st-place finish out of 75 runners in 18:40.69. Anthony Ertsgaard was second for Sweet Home in 34th place in 18:59.20, with Peter VanDerlip a second and three spots behind in 37th (18:59.89) after a tight sprint to the finish with two other runners. Jake Smith ran 19:16.60 for 45th place, Ramiro Santana (19:48.38) and Dallin Holden (19:59.13) finished 53rd and 54th respectively, and Robert Callagan was seventh for the Huskies, finishing 59th in 20:16.80.
All were season-best times except for Keys and Holden, who was suffering the after-effects of a cold, Snow said. Keys, he said, may be slowed by a few “dings.”
“On the boys side, we ran well but the pack needs to move up as a whole,” he said, noting that three runners got below 19 minutes and Santana dipped below the 20 mark.
“We still have our work cut out for us to get ahead of Sisters and Mollala.”
In the junior varsity boys race, Sam Bishop was the top Husky finisher, running 21:02.61 over the 5K course for 24th out of 82 finishers. Josh Rice was 66th in 24:16.75.
In the JV girls race, Korina Thompson ran 31:12.14 over the 5K course for 53rd place out of 58 finishers. Lacey Davenport was 57th in 34:40.74 over the longer-than-usual course for the JV runners, 19 of whom did not even finish.