Sweet Home’s McKenzie Miller and Emma Whitton were top-10 finishers Saturday, Sept. 14, at the Stayton Invitational cross-country meet held on the nature trail at Stayton Middle School.
Miller, a junior, was fifth in the field of 74 runners, finishing the winding and often narrow dirt-trail 5,000-meter course in 21:00.04, more than a minute faster than she ran the same course last year.
Whitton, a freshman, was a step behind in sixth (21:04.44). Dallas’ Kelsey Rodli was the winner in 19:33.41, followed by Philomath freshman Cassidy Smart (20:12.44), Philomath senior Hallie Morrison (20:17.52) and Cascade junior Makaila Kuenzi (20:48.36).
“Emma and McKenzie ran really strong races, real close to their PR’s from the week before (at Cascade), and this was on a tougher course,” said Coach Dave Martin.
Junior Anabelle Morris was 43rd for Sweet Home in the varsity racer, running 25:02.73, a personal best for that distance – the only PR of the day.
“Overall, our times weren’t as good because it was a tougher course,” Martin said. “There were places where the course was pretty narrow and had hills. I liked the effort from the kids. We competed really well.”
The varsity boys were missing two of their top runners, sophomores Ryker Burr and Hunter Clark, along with senior Kasey Kast.
Freshman Acen Webber finished first for the Huskies, 55th in 21:31.63, followed by sophomore Conner Spencer in 67th (21:51.91), freshman Noah Strawn in 96th (23:33.92) and freshman Evan Malabago in 106th (25:00.91).
“We had three freshman boys run varsity races, so they ran 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) for the first time,” Martin said. “They were good efforts for the first time. Acen, especially, ran a really good, strong race. I was pleased with everybody’s efforts, even though it wasn’t as good of times because of the tougher course.”
Freshman Louis Kistner was the top finisher for the Huskies in the boys 3000 JV race, placing 32nd in 13:52.02, with fellow freshman Wes Goff one step behind in 13:53.09. Junior Keagan Vogel was 38th in 14:04.12, freshman Eli Adams was 57th in 16:00.27, and senior Boden Sayer was 68th in 18:29.49.
For the JV girls, freshman Grace Gardner finished the 3000 meters in 14th place, running 15:58.32. Sophomore Noelle Helfrich was 21st in 17:01.10, and junior Rylie Hollingsworth was 33rd in 21:04.58.
In the girls middle school 3000, Cassie Spencer was second, behind St. Mary Catholic’s Frankie Koehnke (12:56.60) in 13:32.84. Marian Helfrich was 36th in 156:54.35, in her first cross-country race, and Pyper Hall was 69th in 19:24.14, followed by Lexie Lee in 24.07.72, placing 91st.
For the middle school boys, Sweet Home’s Elijah Rodriguez was second in 11:51.11, behind Talmadge’s Hudson Stange (11:45.46) over the 3000-meter course. Hudson Ogden was 22nd, in 13:58.08. All Sweet Home’s current runners are eighth-graders.
Up next for Sweet Home, which is still picking up some new runners and has not yet seen its entire roster run a race, will be the Northwest Classic on Saturday, Sept. 21, at Lane Community College. Nearly 70 high school teams and nearly 40 middle school teams from all over the state are expected to participate.
Martin predicted that the LCC course, which is where the state championship meet will be held in November, will be “flat and fast.”
“We’re going to get a lot of PR’s this week because of the fast course and the competition.”
Middle school girls start at 10 a.m., with the boys at 10:30 a.m., followed by the junior varsity girls at 11 a.m. and boys at 11:40, and the varsity 1A through 4A girls at 12:20 p.m., followed by the boys at 1 p.m.
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