Sweet Home’s cross-country teams are still in the endurance development stage of their season, in which the Huskies typically spend a lot of time running tired – on hills and in sand.
That was the case last week as they competed at Silver Falls and then again at Camp Rilea, north of Seaside, in two races known for their difficult terrain.
“It was a good week, a productive week,” said Coach Andrew “Keebler” Allen.
Three Course Challenge
On Saturday, at Camp Rilea, the Huskies competed in the Three Course Challenge, in which runners compete in one of three races, labeled “Hard,” “Moderate” and “Easy” over sandhills and through ate least one mudhole at the military base. Due to the difficulty of running on sand, the “Easy” race would be considered difficult in comparison to most cross-country courses, and because of that, Sweet Home has approached the meet as more of a workout than an actual race, Allen said.
The race drew some 40 teams this year, about equally split between Oregon and Washington, and two from Southern California.
In the 5000-meter “hard” course, Trey Reed was 66th out of 200 runners for the boys in 22:29, about a minute faster than his time last year over the same course, with freshman Noah Dinsfriend 199th in 24:56.
Sweet Home finishers in the 4500-meter “easy” course were Julian Hesberg, 99th out of 405 runners in 18:25, Allen Cuilla 136th in 18:55, Noah Taraski 147th in 19:15, Joe Rasmussen 169th in 19:39, Nelson Rodgers was 206th in 20:30, Nick Tolman was 212th in 20:42, Sean Wolthuis was 313th in 22:53, and Christian Baham was 371st in 26:29.
In the 5000-meter “moderate” course, Ricky Yunke was 111th out of 200 runners in 22:43 and Kobe Olsen was right behind, 115th in 22:51.
Allen said the three races gave him a chance to mix his varsity and JV runners in the same races, which allowed for some repositioning on a team that’s already tightly packed.
“They had a good race,” he said. “Everybody on the boys side finished in the top quarter or third.”
The boys finished 25th out of 40 teams in the hypothetical scoring, which counts the finishes of the top runners from each team in the three races. Scores for girls teams were not available Monday.
For the girls, Bethany Gingerich was 55th out of 373 runners for the girls on the “easy” course in 21:54, with Faith Black 310th in 29:58. Allison Wickline was 177th out of 200 runners on the “moderate” course in 30:11.
On the “hard” course, Sierra Swanson was 129th out of 200 runners in 30:20, with Kayleen Keeney 140th in 30:51 and Dana Hiett 166th in 31:46, after a tough race in which she fell at the finish line.
Allen noted that Black, running her first 5000 cross-country race ever, ran nearly the same pace she had earlier in the week in the first race of her career, a 3000 at Silver Falls. Also performing well, he said, was Baham.
“Our rookies had a good day,” he said.
Silver Falls Invitational
The Huskies ran their first race in nearly two weeks at the Silver Falls Octoberfest Invite on Wednesday, Sept. 15.
Although this year’s race did not feature the normal “Monster” hill, which requires a steep climb of about half a mile, the substitute was not easier, Allen said.
“The course was described as ‘moderately flat,’ but the kids said it was all ups and downs,” he said. There was one particularly steep climb that runners described as “a wall.”
Sweet Home’s boys were 11th out of 25 teams, two spots behind Junction City, the only other Sky-Em team in the race.
Trey Reed was 37th (20:07) out of 187 runners, followed by Ricky Yunke in 72nd (21:19), Noah Dinsfriend in 81st (21:39), Julian Hesberg in 94th (22:02), Kobe Olsen in 98th (22:11), Tanner Sayers in 104th (22:16) and Nelson Rodgers in 120th (22:52.5).
The girls finished 15th out of 18 teams, well behind Junction City, which finished eighth. East Linn, led by Sydney Nichol of Sweet Home in fifth place overall (22:05) was second. The Eagles’ Sara Helfrich, also from Sweet Home, was 27th (24:51).
Bethany Gingerich was the Huskies’ first finisher in 61st place (26:46), followed by Dana Hiett (67th, 27:10), Sierra Swanson (82nd, 27:40), Kayleen Keeney (83rd, 27:41) and Maria Daniels (126th, 31:09). Senior Faith Black, running her first cross-country race, finished the 3000-meter course 88th out of 117 runners, in 18:48.
Allen said the girls were positioned at the starting line so that they got caught in a bottleneck early in the race, which had a lot of narrow passages where passing is difficult.
Sweet Home also fielded a junior varsity boys team who placed sixth out of 18 teams. Joe Rasmussen led the Huskies, in 15th place overall, in 11:39, followed by Allen Cuilla (20th, 11:50), Nick Rietz (41st, 12:13), Nick Tolman (49th, 12:20), Cameron Taber (99th, 13:07), Sean Wolthuis (135th, 13:56), Jake Hindmarsh (156th, 14:36) and Christian Baham (195th, 17:07).
Junction City, which is shaping up as a team the Huskies will have to beat if they want to qualify for state, was hard to spot in the field because the Tigers weren’t wearing their normal jerseys, Allen said.
“We couldn’t tell who they were,” he said.
A third of the way through the season, Sisters, which the Huskies saw for the first time at Camp Riley, has two front-runners on the boys side and a deep girls team, making the Outlaws once again the favorites in the league.
But beyond that, Allen said, there appears to be a lot of parity.
“We may not know anything until the end of the district race,” he said.