By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SWEET HOME, Ore.– Santiam’s Averie Peterson and Gage Twede had their hands full with four events in Saturday’s Meet of Champions at Sweet Home High School.  Splitting between the jumps and running events during the event that challenged both Wolverine tracksters mentally and physically.

For Twede, the senior had never thought about doing jumping until this year as he decided to do Long Jump and Triple Jump.  A new wrinkle he decided to try on top of him doing the 400-meter dash and 4×100 meter relay.  The forward was what he went to State for last season as a junior as he looks to close out his prep career on a high note following his eighth-place finish in the 400-meter dash and sixth-place finish in the Triple Jump, both PR’s for the senior athlete.

“I like it, to be honest, more than the running events because I feel like I’m a really strong jumper.  So far it’s going well,” Twede said.  “(Going to State) showed me what I need to work  to go back there because that was one of the best experiences of my life for sure.  It’s the goal, it’s the main goal for everyone on the team to go to State.  It’s a big meet, everyone is going to see it and it’s going to be motivation to get there.”

For Peterson, who went to State last year in the 400-meter and 800-meter as a freshman, last year served as a good stepping stone for this year as the Santiam sophomore picked up second-place finishes in the 400-meter and 800-meter races to go with her sixth-place finish in the Triple Jump.  PR-ing in the 400-meter and Triple Jump in the process.

“I know that I can go harder, I’m waiting for it.  I’m waiting for that day,” Peterson said.  “This feels a lot like State to me.  It’s a lot of competition and a lot of people.  Going here and being able to PR, I’m hoping to do the same at State.  I just got to keep working at it, these meets really help out because I felt like I haven’t run this hard  in a long time.  So going to stuff like these, the invitationals, it’s really nice to have them.”

Emma Longfellow finished second in the discus and was eighth in the shot put.  Parker Hanna was seventh in the Pole Vault

Photos By Jeremy McDonald