Cheney runners down Knights for first league win

It was a pretty good week for the Cheney High School boys and girls cross country teams in their first official foray into the regulation, 5,000-meter racing category.

The Blackhawks surprised a few people, including head coach Jay Martin, with wins Wednesday afternoon in dual-meet competition at Salnave Park with Great Northern League contender East Valley. The teams followed that up with another multi-team meet strong showing by finishing fifth (boys) and sixth (girls) at the Erik Anderson Invitational, Saturday at Plantes Ferry State Park in Spokane Valley.

At home Wednesday against East Valley, Cheney's boys demonstrated some solid, early season group running in downing the Knights 25-32, with the girls doing likewise en route to a 20-43 win. The boys turned in a 37-second gap with their top-five scoring varsity runners, led by Steaven Zachman's third-place finish in a time of 17 minutes, 25 seconds and capped by Kaleb Lerch's seventh in 18:02.

In between were Kameron Galm (17:26), Mason Van Stone (17:54) and Matt Christianson (17:55). East Valley's Scott Kopczynski and Chad Stevens ran away with the event, finishing 1-2 with times of 16:15 and 16:27, but Cheney's tightly-bunched top-five easily held out the Knights third and fourth runners, with Carson Kerr finishing 10th in 18:40 and Luke Huguenin 11th in 18:46 to complete the Blackhawks varsity seven.

Cheney's girls also managed a solid group, with all seven of the varsity runners finishing second through eighth, led by Hannah Spakousky with a time of 20:55.8, 35.5 seconds behind East Valley's Brittany Aquino in first. Not far behind Spakousky were Mattie McNair (21:01.7), Jolene Whiteley (21:45.6), Alecia Brooks (22:44.1) and Jessica Vietzke (23:23.9) to complete the varsity scoring, with Shannen Gladden seventh in 23:30.4 and Alexis Brooks eighth in 23:37.2.

Saturday the finishing order of Spakousky-Whiteley was almost reversed. Martin said Whiteley led the entire race before her fellow freshman overtook her at the end to finish 22nd. Whiteley was 24th, with McNair 32nd, Alecia Brooks 36th and Vietzke 48th.

In the boys' field, Zachman was sixth with Galm 33rd, Lerch 37th, Christianson 49th and Van Stone 54th.

"I was proud of them, especially after racing hard on Wednesday," Martin said of his teams' efforts.

It was also a better chance to evaluate how the Blackhawks shape up against other 2A competition. The boys' 162-point, fifth place, was 12 ahead of seventh-place East Valley and 17 ahead of eighth-place West Valley, fellow GNL competitors, while 99 points behind meet champion Sehome.

The girls were the only GNL team in the competition, finishing sixth with 129 points, 94 points behind meet champion Sehome.

The Sehome boys and girls teams are the defending 2A state champions.

The Blackhawks have one meet this week, a league road contest at Clarkston on Wednesday, Sept. 24.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.