Sweet Home’s boys finished in third place Saturday, April 3, in the Oregon West cross-country district championships held at Community Chapel and GB’s Trees Christmas tree farm.
The girls were fifth as a team, as senior Jessy Hart finished sixth.
“It was good,” said Head Coach Kambria Schumacher. “It went really well.”
The Husky boys finished with 98 points, as Philomath won the team title with 34 points, ahead of Sisters (49 points). Stayton was fourth (105), followed by Newport (113), Woodburn (140) and Cascade (183).
Senior Ethan Hosang of Sisters won the boys’ district title, finishing in 16:56.70, ahead of sophomore Brody Bushnell of Philomath (17:37.20) and teammate Will Thorsett, also a senior (17:49.80).
For Sweet Home, sophomore Jake Sieminski was first, 13th overall in a field of 47, in 19:17.40. Treyson Smith was 17th (19:47.10), Ethan Hurst was 20th (19:50.50), Gavin Walberg 21st (19:51.40), Nate Coleman 27th (20:34.70), Jorel Leyba 32nd (21:13.70) and Aiden Shamek 39th (21:58.20).
The time was the best of the season by four seconds for Sieminski, for whom is was only his third cross-country race. His second-best time was clocked on a faster course.
“Jacob has been doing really well this season,” Shumacher said. “He loves competing.”
She said Smith and Hurst both also ran well, both setting season’s bests for that course – 41 seconds for Hurst and 65 seconds for Smith. Leyba ran a 74-second season’s best for the course and Walberg’s time was an improvement of 17 seconds.
In the junior varsity race, Philomath was the only team with enough runners to score. Trace Marler finished fifth in the field of 16 runners, who ran with the varsity, in 23:22.20, improvement of nearly two minutes over his previous run there. Dakota Seiber was 15th, in 28:26.50.
In the girls race, Hart finished in 22:38.30, a 1:45 season’s best for the course, behind winner Ella Thorsett, a sophomore from Sisters who ran 20:14.50, Philomath sophomore Ingrid Hellesto (21:08.70) and Newport junior Aliya Larsen (21:13.50).
“This was Jessy’s best race in a long time,” Schumacher said, noting that Hart took a tumble in a creek crossing, which may have slowed her, slightly. “I don’t know how much time she lost.”
Hart’s sixth place was one off the top-five rule for individuals, set by OSAA. She said she intended to lobby for Hart to get a berth at state, which is being hosted Saturday by Marist.
Behind Hart were Sicily Neuschwander, 20th in the field of 37 runners, in 25:47.60 (1:19 course PR); Meeja Bitter, 22nd in 26:44.60 (1:49 course PR); Maren Weld, 29th in 28:41.60 (1:44 PR); and Summer Hicks, 31st in 29:11.30 (1:51 PR).
Sisters won the team title with 40 points, followed by Philomath (55), Stayton (60), Newport (103), Sweet Home (104) and Cascade (142).
Schumacher said the Huskies made a lot of progress in “a short amount of time” – typically, a high school cross-country season is about double the length of this year’s six-week season.
“The kids who didn’t do any training before did well. Six weeks isn’t really enough time.”