The Timberhill Harriers brought home the top trophy in the age 13-14 boys division from Saturday’s USA Track and Field National Cross Country Junior Olympic Championships in Reno, Nevada.
The local running club, coached by Diana Bushnell, Whitney Bushnell-Smart and Tasha Bushnell-Nuno, easily took first place with just 54 points. A club out of Parker, Colorado, finished second with 152 points.
Philomath eighth-grader Brody Bushnell placed 15th overall in the 13-14 race, which covered 4,000 meters, with a time of 14:33.03. Another Philomath runner, eighth-grader Mateo Candanoza, finished 70th in 15:28.88.
The race featured 387 entries.
Benjamin Collins, a freshman at Sheldon High in Eugene, was the club’s top runner with a 12th-place finish in 14:24.24. Right behind him in 13th was teammate Henry Coughlan, a freshman at Enterprise High, who finished in 14:24.78.
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Behind Collins, Coughlan and Bushnell but finishing in the top 20 overall were Alexander Garcia-Silver in 18th (14:34.87), a North Bend eighth-grader, and Blake Byer in 19th (14:35.27), a freshman at Crescent Valley High in Corvallis.
Michael Maiorano, a freshman at South Medford, finished 34th in 15:01.77 and Cade Byer, a freshman at Crescent Valley, was 35th in 15:02.35.
Philomath’s Reagan Nuno qualified in the girls’ 3,000-meter run for ages 9-10 and finished 203rd out of 264 runners. Nuno ran the course in 15:35.85 despite battling illness in the week leading up to the race.
Cassidy Smart, of Philomath, had qualified in the 2,000-meter run for ages 7-8 but was not able to run at nationals.
The national meet was staged at Rancho San Rafael Regional Park in Reno.
BASEBALL: Chemeketa Community College center fielder Austin Gerding said he will miss the 2019 season with an injured shoulder and sit out as a medical redshirt.
Gerding had surgery for a torn labrum, which is the tissue that helps keep the shoulder joint in place.
Gerding, a 2017 Philomath High graduate, said he injured the shoulder while throwing, but added that it may date back to when he played in high school. Gerding suffered a shoulder injury during the summer of 2015 while playing with the Gerding Builders, the American Legion baseball team out of Corvallis.
As a freshman with Chemeketa, Gerding won the center field job, played in all 46 games and finished with a .298 batting average with 30 runs, 21 RBIs and 12 stolen bases.
With the redshirt, Gerding would retain a year of college eligibility.
Logan Williams, another 2017 PHS graduate, also plays for Chemeketa and he confirmed that he’s healthy for the coming season. Williams, a catcher, hit .235 with 12 runs and 11 stolen bases last season. He spent last summer playing for Gerding Builders.
VOLLEYBALL: Philomath High graduate Haylie Bennett, a redshirt sophomore at Oregon State, was named to the Pac-12 Conference’s all-academic second team. Bennett is majoring in kinesiology with an option in public health. To be eligible for selection, athletes must have a minimum 3.0 grade-point average and have competed in at least 50 percent of the team’s matches.
Bennett, a right-side hitter, had an injury-marred season and played in 20 of the team’s 32 matches. She finished third on the team with 2.07 kills per set.
BASKETBALL: PHS graduate Cal Stueve has appeared in 10 games so far this season with the Oregon Tech men’s basketball team. Stueve, a sophomore, is averaging 3.3 points and 3.0 rebounds mostly off the bench. He had one start and has played an average of 8.8 minutes per game.
Riley Davis, a sophomore at Linn-Benton Community College, had started all six of the team’s games and has averages of 7.2 points, 6.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 3.0 steals per game.
Haidyn Ecker, a true freshman at Regis University in Denver, Colorado, has appeared in two games so far this season. Her college debut came Nov. 23 when she saw limited action in the team's win over Texas Permian Basin.