After miles and miles and miles of training and competition — too many perhaps to count — some dedicated Medical Lake cross country runners got their reward last Wednesday in their final home meet of the season.
“I ran two seniors on varsity that have been with me for a long time,” head coach Gene Blankenship said of Jeremy Ryan and Alex Carl. Those two, along with first place individual finisher, Tyler Pena, helped the Cardinals roll over Newport 15-50 in a Northeast A League dual meet with a time of 18 minutes, 12 seconds.
Medical Lake’s girls scored a victory by the same 15-50 score with Bradyn Wegner pacing her team with a 23:11.
“It was an honor for them for sticking with the program so long; they’ve been with me for six years,” Blankenship said. Ryan finished seventh in 21:20 while Carl was eighth at 22:10. Ryan competed on Blankenship’s first middle school team as a seventh grader.
Medical Lake swept the top five spots in the race with sophomore Evan Peterson second (18:23) and freshman Zachary Lewis third (18:47). Carl Hiatt, a junior, was fourth (19:09) and sophomore Brandon McCoy wrapped up the group fifth at 19:33. Newport’s Christian Lotzenhiser clocked a 20:16, good for sixth.
Mariah Pena was the second place girl for Medical Lake in a time of 23:14 and notable was the third place finish of Newport’s freshman, Jamie Morrell, whose time of 23:20 was accomplished running with one shoe. Morrell lost her left shoe in the first half of the race but continued to run over the varied terrain of the 5,000-meter course at Medical Lake High School.
The Cardinals usual No. 1 runner, Mason Williams and No. 2, Jacob Dingfield, both sat out the meet, but did do some running on the track to stay loose and prepare for either the Cardinals’ final NEA meet, run this past Wednesday, Oct. 21 at Freeman. Mariah Kroeze on the girl’s side also did not compete last Wednesday.
“Freeman has a lot of kids and their girl’s team is pretty good,” Blankenship said. The boys expect a relatively easy time, their coach said as they prepare for district competition Oct. 29 at Chewelah Golf Course.
Blankenship predicts a third place finish at the districts for his boy’s team that will also finish third in league.
“We have to run well and I have to have the right kids in the race,” Blankenship said. “Jacob is healthy and working out, Mason looks pretty good and then we’ve got all those babies,” Blankenship said of the large group of sophomores that make up positions 3-7.
The last time an individual girl did not qualify for state was 2010, Blankenship’s first year.
“Hopefully one or two of our girls step it up at districts and get a top-10,” Blankenship said.
“The boys get three entries to state this year, the girls only get two which means there’s only 10 individuals in the girls and 15 in the boys” Blankenship said.
As for state qualifying the next week, Deer Park and Lakeside appear to be the odds-on favorites to send teams to Pasco for the Nov. 7 final.
Blankenship said Riverside is a dark horse that does well in the end of the regular season. “Last year they knocked off Deer Park to keep them from going as a team to state.”
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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