April 5, Sweet Home track teams competed at a seven-way meet at Pleasant Hill. Team scores were not available but schools competing included Pleasant Hill, Sweet Home, Douglas, Glide, Yoncalla, Mohawk and Oak Hill.
“Although the weather turned on us by the end of the meet, it was a good meet for our kids,” said Coach Billy Snow. “We had good efforts all around and the kids represented themselves and their school very well. We were able to look at some kids in different events and in different combos. Our guys had 37 personal records for the season out of 51 opportunities and the girls were right in there too with 19 PRs in 32 tries.”
On the boys side, the Huskies won 5 of the 10 events on the track. Coach Snow said he was particularly pleased with some of the times and marks because the kids were competing tired.
“The jumpers had a hard plometric workout on Monday and all runners had a long, hard interval workout on Tuesday that they were still a bit sore and tired from.”
The short relay team of Mike Severns, Mauro Angulo, Jared Allen and Matt Kragness dropped a second from the Central meet and won the event in 46.06. Justin Temple led nearly wire-to-wire in taking the 1500M in a 4:33.68. Chris Burford took fourth in the race in a near PR of 4:51.08 and Richard Westvik set a PR in the same event.
In the 100M, Severns continues to improve according to Coach Snow. He ran a PR 12.24 to take third with David Burford coming out of the second heat to PR at 13.0 for eighth. In the 400 M, Matt Kragness ran a 52.74 to win. His time is No. 10 on the SHHS senior list. Mauro Angulo went too fast but hung on for fourth in a lifetime best 56.65.
In the 800M, Nick Graves continued his fine season with another PR in the 800M, running 2:14.08 for second place overall. Jared Tenbusch had a season PR in the same event.
Kragness came back in the 200M and ran what Coach Snow called a “phenomenal race” winning in 22.56, just .02 of a second short of the school record. He was a bit mad for going out too slow in the 400M.
“When Matt learns to be aggressive like that in both the 400M and 200M consistently, you should see some consistent quality times at both distances. David Burford (26.73) and Casey Baarson (26.76) both had PRs in the same race and went 7th and 8th respectively.
Jared Allen ran his second straight sub-43 intermediate hurdle race, winning in 42.96. “Jared makes this race look easy and as he gets stronger this year, he’ll only get better at this distance,” Coach Snow said. Keegan Burnett had a PR in the race to take fourth at 49.70.
In the 3000M, John Lovik and Robert Couch led the Huskies. John Battling some lower leg problems continues to mend and took second at 10:40.56. Couch, in his first race of the season, ran a gutsy fifth place finish at 11:14.7.
In the last event on the track, Mauro Angulo, Casey Baarson, Mike Severns and Justin Temple battled the wind, rain and cold to take second in the 1600M relay at 3:56.7.
In the field, the throwers had a great day, Coach Snow said. All the discus throwers had PRs, as did 9 of 12 javelin throwers. Casey Aiello cracked the 140 foot mark in the javelin, going 141′ 10″ to place third. He was followed by Malcolm Brown who had a PR at 110-05 to place sixth and Noah Gray who went a PR 199-03 for seventh. In the shot put, Aron van Dijk had a lifetime PR of 30-08.25 for fifth. Matt Slauson had a non-scoring PR put of 36-04 which places him 8th on the frosh boys shot put list for SHHS.
In the jumps, Jake Dahlenburg led the way, clearing 11-06 with no misses to take first place in the pole vault. Keegan Burnett and Robert McGarry both cleared 9-06 with no misses to tie for fourth place in the vault. Jared Allen was third in the high jump at 5-04. Mike Severns took fifth in the long jump at 17-0 and Richard Westvik was eighth in the triple jump at 29-08 in his first attempt at that event.
On the girls side of the ledger, Nicole Burnside and Ashley Smith had big days point wise, Coach Snow said. Burnside placed in all three of her throwing events, while Smith placed in all three jumping events. Burnside was second in the shot put at 31-10.25, fifth in the discus at 81-10 and second in the javelin in a PR 97-04. Ashley took fourth in the long jump at 14-04 which puts her eighth on the frosh list in that event and came back to set a new frosh class record in the triple jump at 31-07.5, good enough for second. Between events, she also went 4-06 in the high jump for third.
Elsewhere on the field, the girl throwers established 16 season PRs in their events. Meaghan Schafer, Christine Smith and We Wicheaunat each went 3 for 3 in the PR department. Christine placed fifth in the shot put at 26-05.5. Meaghan was seventh in at 24-08 and Rachel Gaskey was third in a near PR of 28-01. In the discus, Shaina Burnett had a huge PR at 81-06 to place sixth, just behind Burnside.
In the jumps, Lisa Brocard placed in both of her events, going 4-2 for fifth place in the high jump and had a PR 13-11 in the long jump to place sixth.
On the track, the Huskies fielded relay teams for the first time this season. The short relay of Ashley Smith, Lisa Brocard, Liz Aman and Stephanie Kragness went 56.85 for second place. In the long relay, Aman anchored the foursome of Mayumi Tanaka, Andrea Martin and Rina Kanazawa to second in a time of 5:11.77.
Stephanie Kragness ran a season PR 14.5 to place fourth in the 100M and then came back to battle stomach cramps to place sixth in the 200M. Andrea Martin, in her first race of the year, went 77.46 in the 400M to place fourth.
Rina Kanazawa and Anne Helfrich each ran tough 800s to place sixth and seventh respectively. In the 3000M, Megan Snow dropped about 20 seconds from her PR to place fourth at 13:16.85 and Ana Andrade was right behind at 14:44.22 to place sixth.
“We had good efforts all around and the kids represented themselves and their school very well,” Coach Snow said. “We continually drive home the message of supporting your team and school and doing it with class. By the last event, the 1600M relay, besides the kids running, our kids were the only ones left on the track, including the host school. All our kids not competing were on the second corner, cheering on the relay runners. This is a credit to their support to each other and the team and was noticed by the other coaches still in attendance. The coaches publicly want to thank our kids for being such good reps for the community and the school.”
Calendar: The Huskies will compete Thursday at the Capital Conference Relays at North Marion.