Sweet Home won both the boys and girls competitions Tuesday, May 2, as they hosted Stayton and Central Linn in the last regular-season track meet for the Husky varsity athletes before they host districts on May 19-20.
Sweet Home outscored Central Linn 120-51 on the girls side and Stayton on the boys, 112-61.
There were some big performances from the Huskies, who are still figuring out exactly where their strengths lie, particularly for the younger athletes who, thanks to COVID, got a delayed start in track.
Senior Mason Lopez led Sweet Home with three individual wins, in the 110 and 300 hurdles and the javelin.
He chopped three-tenths of a second off his best 110 hurdles time to break 17 seconds for the first time in his eight races in that event, finishing in 16.79, which moved him to third in the Oregon West Conference rankings – just over a second behind second-ranked Ethan Newton of Cascade (15.70) and No. 1 Micah Matthews of Philomath (15.68).
“Mason’s hurdles was a big one,” Head Coach Nathan Whitfield said. “He’s getting closer to hitting the state auto qualifier.
Stayton’s league-leading short spirnter Travis King (11.29 in the 100, 23.16 in the 200) did not run those events, but won the 400 in 53.72, a step ahead of junior Kyle Sieminski (54.49) and his older brother Jake, who ran the event in high school for the first time to finish half a second back of his brother in third. Jake Sieminski kept moving because he was scheduled to sign a letter of intent to wrestle at Southern Oregon University less than half an hour after the race ended (see above).
SH’s boys lost the 4×400 relay by one-tenth of a second to Central Linn without the Sieminski brothers, who had left for the signing ceremony, but the Huskies’ 4×400 combo of Kasey Kast, Dillan Davis, Von James and Dakota Seiber posted the best time of the season in that event – 3:44.71, which is just over four seconds out of second place in the OWC.
“In the four-by-four we were missing a couple of kids, two of our faster ones, but they still PR’d, so they did really well,” Whitfield said.
Despite not having King in the 100, sophomore Chase Cameron improved his rookie season best time by one-tenth of a second, running 11.64. which moved him into third in the OWC rankings.
Other big improvements were from senior Exavier Stratman, who posted a three-foot PR in the long jump (16-6) and freshman James Hearick, who ran a five-second PR in the 1500 (4:52.17).
On the girls side, freshman Mckenzie Miller continued to improve, winning the 1500 and then going on to post a 30-second PR of 12.06.60 in the 3000, which moved her into sixth place in the OWC standings. Stayton’s Hope Bridge is the league’s top performer in both the 1500 (5:02) and 3000 (10:56), but she did not run those last week.
Freshmen Lily Bishop and Delainie Pratt went one-two (20.92 and 20.96) to post big PRs in the 100 hurdles, while Tierney Clarno posted an 8-foot PR in the discus (70-4) and Jess Martineau improved her best in the shot by 1½ feet, throwing 27-9¾.
See more photos in our online gallery.