Sweet Home Junior High fielded one of its largest track teams in years and the Tigers had a banner season, with a second-place finish for the boys at the league championships meet.
That came against nine other teams, six of which are feeder schools for either 5A or 6A high schools. Talmadge (Independence) outscored Sweet Home by 1½ points to eke out the league title with 94 points. Sweet Home had 92.5 followed by Lebanon (77), Duniway (McMinnville, 59), Silverton (47), French Prairie (Woodburn, 39), Stayton (38), Patton (McMinnville, 37), Cascade (32.5) and North Marion (30).
On the girls side, Sweet Home was fifth with 43.5 points behind Stayton (127.5), Lebanon (111), Cascade (63) and Talmadge (52.5) and ahead of Silverton (41), Patton (38), Duniway (36), North Marion (15.5) and French Prairie (8).
The Capital Junior Conference meet, the first held for local middle schools in years, was hosted by Lebanon.
It was big year, numbers-wise for Sweet Home, which had 44 boys and 39 girls finish the season having competed in at least two competitions.
The Tigers had some true standouts this year in eighth-graders Braden Driver and Elijah Roderiguez, both of whom scored big points for Sweet Home and both demonstrating significant versatility.
But they weren’t alone. The Tigers had at least one boy in the top five of the league (### Teams) in every event they competed in with the exception of the 100 and the long jump.
Driver won the league title in the 200 (25.52), 800 (2:18.80 to win by six seconds) and 100 hurdles (30 inches, 15.05), and anchored the boys 4×400 team (with Rodriguez, Hudson Hill and Bentley Uhlry) to a four-second win in 4:13.40.
Driver followed that up with an eighth-place finish in the hurdles (14.96) at the state Meet of Champions two days later in Corvallis. He was also 12th in the 800 (2:12.38) and 15th in the 400 (55.86) in the state competition.
At the Meet of Champions, Uhlry, Rodriguez, Hill and Driver were 20th in the 4×400, running 4:01.61, good for 20th at state.
Driver was finished the season with the fastest time in the league in the 400 (55.86) but didn’t compete in that event at the district meet due to the four-event limitation.
Rodriguez won the 3000 by nearly 50 seconds in 11:09.23, a PR, at districts, then turned around and ran his leg in the 4×400 literally a few minutes later. He also placed third in the 1500 (4:53.74, a PR) and was fourth in the aero-javelin with a throw of 113-11.
Hill, a sixth-grader, was fifth in the 200 (26.51, a PR), and had top-10 finishes in the 100 (26.51) and the 400 (1:03.49).
Other top performers for the Tiger boys were eighth-grader Jaicob Shaw, who was second in the district discus finals, throwing a PR of 96-8 (1-kilogram discus), and seventh-grader Gabe Hayes, who was fourth in district in the shot (8-pound, 37-7, a PR).
In addition to Hill, sixth-grader Tanner Tenbusch was fourth in the 3000 (12:28.74, a PR) and sixth-grader Carter Duffitt was ninth in the 1500 (5:29.31).
The girls finished fifth out of 10 teams at district, and although they had no individual winners, they got some big performances.
Seventh-grader Ava Gaspard was second in the long jump (15-1¾) and fourth in the 200 (29.02).
Capital Junior Conference competition this year.
Sixth-grader Cadence Sinclair was fourth in the 100 hurdles (30-inches) in 18.78, a PR, and finished eighth in the 400 in another PR of 1:11.09.
Sinclair also helped the Tiger girls to a fourth-place finish in the 4×400 relay, teaming with Navaeh Lopez, Cassie Spencer and Pyper Hall to finish in 4:52.91.
Seventh-grader Raylene Allison was fourth in the Aero Javelin with a throw of 76-9 (a PR), just ahead of teammate Persephone Brookfield, an eighth-grader, who threw 73-7, also a PR for sixth.
Eighth-grader Elizabeth Hankins was sixth in the long jump, behind Gaspard, with a leap of 14-2 ¾.
In the high jump, Allison Hankins, a sixth-grader, was fourth, clearing 4-2.