The conditioning phase of Sweet Home’s cross-country runners’ season continued Saturday, Sept. 21, at the Three Course Challenge, held on the sand hills along the coast at Camp Rilea, north of Seaside.
The meet drew 50 high school teams mostly from Oregon and Washington, but including teams from Canada and California. More than half of the field was from Washington.
It was a good day for some of the Huskies, Coach Kambria Schumacher said.
Sweet Home’s runners were split between three races – an “easy” 4500 meter course, a “moderate” 5000 meters and a “hard” course that was listed as 5000 meters, but was actually 3.3 miles, according to a Seaside coach.
The top finisher for the boys was senior Tristan Saultz, who placed 10th out of 319 runners on the “moderate” course, running 18:59. Sophomore Nate Coleman was 42nd, in 20:25; sophomore Jorel Leyba was 76th, in 21:51; freshman Adrian Kast was 88th, in 22:03 and sophomore Aiden Shamek was 201st, in 25:02. Their efforts placed them seventh out of 27 teams in the race.
Will Thorset of Sisters was the winner, in 18:03.
“Tristan Saultz had a good race,” Schumacher said. “It was nice to see him really trying to race against best. He wanted to race against that Sisters kid. Hopefully, by end of the season, I expect him to close that gap.”
Coleman’s finish, she said, “kind of surprised the heck out of us. He had a really good day. Adrian Kast did well too.”
In the “easy” 4500 race, which had 316 finishers, sophomore Brian Frick ran for the first time this season, coming off of foot surgery, and finished 198th to lead the Huskies, in 21:38. Sophomore Paul Amrein was 265th, in 23:44, junior Jaren Adams was 282nd, in 24:44, and freshman Dakota Seiber was 303rd, in 26:43.
“Brian finally got to race,” Schumacher said. “He raced pretty well for not having a whole lot of training.”
In the “hard” race, junior Gavin Walberg led Sweet Home, placing 48th out of 301 runners, in 21:32. Junior Treyson Smith “did well,” finishing second for the Huskies in 52nd, running 21:35, followed by senior Rian Howard, a transfer from Lebanon, who was 91st in 22:45.
“Rian Howard, once he gets a little more base, he should be a scorer,” Schumacher said.
Behind them were junior Tristan Calkins, 129th in 23:33, senior Eric Roddy, 178th in 24:52, and senior Zach Zanona, 215th in 26:02.
Junior Jessy Hart was the girls’ top finisher, running the “hard” course in 25:32 to finish 25th out of 167 runners.
“Jessy raced pretty well,” Schumacher said.
In the “medium” race, junior Sicily Neuschwander finished 72nd out of 198, running 27:21, with junior Summer Hicks not far behind, 90th in 27:55.
Freshman Meeja Bitter, getting her first exposure to the 4500-meter distance, was 70th out of 227 runners, in 23:07.
“Meeja had a good race,” Schumacher said. “It was definitely not too bad for her third race.”
Up next for the Huskies is the Nike Portland XC meet this Saturday, Sept. 28, at Blue Lake Park in Gresham.
The race, which previously had been run at Portland Meadows horse racing track, which closed earlier this year, will include nearly 150 teams from all over the West, including California and many Washington schools.
“This should be a really good race for them to gauge where they’re at,” Schumacher said, noting that this will be the first “fast” course the Huskies have run this year. “I’m very interested to see what kind of times they’re going to run.”