New track coach’s focus is building (competitive) team

Scott Swanson

With a brand new head coach and a team loaded with underclassmen, Sweet Home track and field enters its first meet of the season Wednesday, March 16, at Pleasant Hill with a lot of question marks.

Head Coach Alysson Bodenbach said her biggest focus going in has been building a team.

“We’re helping each other through workouts,” she said, noting she’s been driving her athletes hard.

“The first part of the season is exhausting for the kids who haven’t worked out. Right now it’s pretty intense, but we’re setting boundaries, setting ourselves up for the rest of the season.”

Bodenbach, who coached at Topeka High School in Kansas the past two years, said she thinks the team is off to a good start.

“They’re dedicated and they work hard,” she said. “It’s night and day from the last time I coached. It makes it easy to come to practice. We work hard and we play hard.

“We have a lot of kids staying after practice, asking what they can do. They want to be here, they want to work hard.”

She said she’s pretty happy with the work ethic she’s seen so far and she’s particularly grateful for a cadre of veteran assistants, all of whom have been on the staff for years – a big change from her experience in Topeka, she said.

With 82 athletes on the roster going into this week, a big focus for the Huskies is teamwork and Bodenbach said she’s seeing upperclassmen taking the lead.

“They’re helping each other through workouts. It’s never more evident than on a hard day, like today,” she said after last Friday’s workout. “That’s kind of where we are as a program, where I would like to see us go. We’re building as a whole team, not just parts.”

Longtime Assistant Coach Jim Kistner said he can see where she’s going.

“I like the workouts we’re doing,” he said. “We’re keeping the whole team together. A lot of it is very very similar to what we’ve done in the past, just a different order. Fundamentally, it’s really solid. The kids are learning really, really quickly.”

After a second-place finish at district last year for the boys and fifth place for the girls, Sweet Home has its work cut out. But there’s promise. In addition to returning state qualifiers in nine events, the Huskies had 12 near-misses by underclassmen vying for state berths last year, which go to the top two finishers in each event, notching five third places, five fourth places and two fifth places.

The boys have lost one of their biggest points producers, distance runner Jakob Hiett, who delivered two second-place finishes from the 2015 state championships for the boys, gone to graduation and the University of Portland. But the good news is that nearly all of their other state qualifiers from last year are back to lead a group of young athletes who showed promise last season or are doing so now.

On the girls side, Sweet Home is led by the return of three members from last year’s girls 4×100 relay team, seniors Josie Knight and Sarah Dunkley, and sophomore Bethany Gingerich. The short relay has been a staple for Sweet Home in district and state meets – the Husky girls won state titles in 2009, 2010 and 2012 – losing in 2011 to Philomath by .11 seconds.

Assistant Coach Ramiro Santana, who oversees the relays, said he’s expecting big things this year.

“We have everybody back except India (Porter, who graduated),” he said, adding that he has several newcomers who might be able to fill that spot.

The boys short relay also qualified for state last year, shocking the league at the district meet with a second-place finish after knocking .35 seconds off their season’s best time to place second – after coming into the district meet ranked fifth. Back this year are three of the boys short relay, Egan Shamek, Matt Davis and Trey Reed.

Those three, plus others played big roles in the boys’ second-place finish at districts last year.

Santana said he expects Sweet Home to be stronger in the 4×400 relay as well, on both sides, with some incoming freshmen and other newcomers who are showing speed.

Sweet Home’s boys weren’t particularly weak in the long relay by state standards, running 3:32.52 at district for a 5½-second PR, which would have won some leagues around the state, but was good for fourth in the Sky-Em.

“Last year we didn’t have a whole lot in the 4×400, but this year we will be more competitive,” he said.” I think our four-by-four will be much improved. We’ll see how that works out.”

Kistner, who handled the sprints last year and is spreading his decades of experience around this year in areas where he is needed, particularly the hurdles, said Sweet Home has some talent in the short events.

“Right now we have a real good 400 group coming back, led by Trey and Bethany,” he said. “(Freshman) Kate Hawken is showing a ton of potential. They just look strong.”

Knight is back after a fourth-place finish in the 100 at last year’s districts and Gingerich earned a trip to state in both the 200 and 400 with second-place finishes in 2015. Junior Natasha Rasmussen is also a candidate to contribute big in the sprints area, he said.

Reed, a junior, went into state last year with one of the fastest times but ran too aggressively for the first half in the preliminary 400 and faded down the stretch to miss the final by one spot.

Also, senior Jacob Erickson has made “a big, big step up in potential” and sophomore Justin Carpenter also figures to be a contributor, Kistner said.

In the hurdles, Davis returns after a fourth-place district finish in the 300s and Kistner said he expects senior TJ Baham, who spent the winter on the swim team, to come through in the hurdles as well.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to pick up some extras,” Kistner said.

On the girls side, Knight is expected to compete in the 100 hurdles this year, along with sophomore Cora McKee, who showed promise in both hurdles events as a freshman.

“The work that Josie put in over the winter has had a huge impact,” Kistner said. “She was out there a lot.”

He said seniors Sierra Swanson and Maria Daniels, who runs distances as well, may be able to contribute in the 300 hurdles as well as McKee.

Kistner said the sprinters and hurdlers have been coming together well.

“They just look real strong,” he said. “The whole sprint crew has been working really, really hard. Were focusing on conditioning, fundamentals.”

Assistant Coach Billy Snow, who is handling the jumps, said the team should be stronger in that area, with returnees in almost every event who placed at district or competed at state last year, but he’s “looking around” for additional talent.

Shamek and junior Wes Parker return in the long and triple jumps, in which Shamek finished fifth in, what for him, was a less-than-satisfying performance as he struggled with fouls in the state meet. He was also fourth in the district in the triple. Although Porter, who finished third at districts in the triple for the girls, is gone, he expects others to fill that gap.

“We’ve got a lot of new girls out.”

Sweet Home also looks to be stronger in the high jump, he said.

Swanson was 14th in the event at state as a junior and she is joined by sophomore Caylie Trewin and junior Dana Hiett. On the boys side, Erickson is back, and Snow is “looking for another guy or two.

“I think we’ll come up with three good high jumpers,” he said.

In the pole vault, Stutzman and senior TJ Baham were third and fourth in districts, and Snow said they will be joined by junior Gracie Olson and Hiett.

In the throws, Assistant Coach Nathan Whitfield, who specializes in the javelin, noted that Stutzman returns after a was fourth in the javelin. And Garrison Whitfield, who would likely have been a state contender last season but had academic difficulties, is back this year as a senior, Nathan Whitfield said.

On the girls side, junior Shania Baxter will lead a group of relatively inexperienced throwers, he said. Baxter finished eighth at district, behind teammate Jordan Miller, a senior, who qualified for state in the event.

Knight is back in the shot after placing third in district last year, but Whitfield said the Huskies are thin on experience in the weight events.

“We lost a lot of people,” he said. “On the guys side, it’s going to be a complete rebuild, especially in the shot.”

That’s also true in the distances, where Hiett’s absence will be obvious in the scoring column.

Assistant Coach Andrew “Keebler” Allen welcomes back some veterans, but he said too many lack the base that other teams will have in the league, which has gotten faster in recent years.

The Huskies do have experience on the girls side from seniors Kayleen Keeney, Allison Wickline and Ashley Wickline.

“I look at this squad and we don’t have a lot of speed,” Allen said. “The Wicklines are just beasts – tough and strong. If we had longer races, it would be great for them.”

On the boys side, he said Ricky Yunke and Tanner Thayer could be “pleasant surprises.”

Thayer, a freshman, “shocked us all” in establishing himself as the No. 2 runner for the cross-country team for most of the fall, Allen said, and after swimming all winter he could be a factor in the 1500 and 3000, along with Yunke who, like the Wicklines, is an endurance runner.

“We have a lot of newbies,” Allen said. “I haven’t seen what they have. Unless I’ve trained a team all winter, it usually takes six to eight weeks before we really know what they can do. We’ll see what comes out of them.”

Rounding out the roster for Sweet Home, as of this week, are Makenna Ashton, Christian Baham, Daniel Batchelor, Natasha Benson, Faith Black, Chase Blanco, Kylee Ceccato, Anna Coleman, Ellie Davis, Noah Dinsfriend, Shelby Dinsfriend, Patric Dishaw, Ashley Farthing, Riku Funabashi, Gabe Glynn, Charlie Guerrero, Nathan Hager, Lance Hanson, Ella Hewitt, Sarah Hewitt, Tori Jackson, Blake Keeney, Eva Kinker, Kat Kinker, Caden Knight, Parker Lemmer, Ryan Lundeen, Erica McCoy, Justin Miller, Trevor Miner, Noah Moore, Madelyn Neuschwander, Hayden Nichol, Emily Ramsey, Skylar Read, Nelson Rodgers, Mary Rouse, Austin Sills, Caleb Simonis, Jade Smith-Boatman, Jade Stiles, Kendyl Stutzman, Jake Swanson, Cameron Taber, Noah Taraski, Jessi Thomas, Nick Tolman, Noah Webb, Emma Wolcox, Bradley Wolthuis, Sean Wolthuis, McKenzie Yoder, Ricky Yunke and Robbie Yunke.

Snow said that he believes the league won’t be dominated by Elmira’s boys this year, after the Falcons won the last two district titles.

“Elmira’s boys took a big hit from graduation,” he said. “They have a couple of good kids coming back but they lost all of their top sprinters and jumpers.”

He predicts that Junction City, which has some speed, will be a contender, along with Cottage Grove, “which has a great coaching staff and they’ve got a lot of guys back.”

On the girls side, Sisters won the title last year even though the Outlaws had some “gaping holes” in certain events, Snow said. They have a good distance crew to go with their sprint speed.

“They have two good coaches and they’re far and away the favorites,” he said.

“Junction City has also gotten tough and Elmira’s girls will be improved this year. They were young last year.”

He said he expects Sweet Home to be in the mix on both sides.

“I think we will be decent,” he said.

The track season is a week short this year, due to demands on Hayward Field, where the state championships are held.

“Due to the fact that it’s a shorter season, we’re going to take most of varsity kids to the Wally Ciochetti Invitational meet in Cotage Grove,” Snow said. “We won’t do that last chance meet that we’ve done the last couple of years.”

The Huskies will host home meets on April 12 and April 20, and a giant junior varsity invitational that will include both Sky-Em and Oregon West teams, on May 4.

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