Medical Lake gets stellar effort from mid-pack runners in 27-28 win over Deer Park

From the start of the 2016 cross country season where his boy's team was pretty well dominated by Deer Park, head coach Gene Blankenship saw his Medical Lake team slowly begin to reel in the defending state 1A champions.

The Cardinals landed their prized catch Oct. 18 when they scored a 27-28 Northeast A League victory over the Stags in a meet that returned the league championship trophy to the school for the third time in the last four years. Colville was a distant third, scoring 66 points.

This was the third time this season that Medical Lake had faced Deer Park. And the last two meetings have seen the Cards slowly reverse the competition gap that Blankenship saw in the season's first race, Sept. 10 in Moses Lake.

"We made up all that ground," Blankenship said of the final meet held Tuesday, Oct. 18. And it was a lot. "In all honesty, in those first two meets (the second at Clarkston, Sept. 17) they almost came close to perfect scoring us," he added, putting five runners ahead of the first Medical Lake runner.

"This time we didn't let that happen," he said.

Originally the finish was scored a 31-31 tie, Blankenship said. And the way the online reporting at Athletic.net shows it, the meet was scored as an invitational.

NEA races are double-duals where teams compete against two different schools at the same time. When scored that way, with each school's top-five finishers scoring points - one point for first place and 10 points for 10th - it gave Medical Lake its slim edge.

The Cards' won it with their two, three and four runners, Blankenship said. "They went one, we went two, they went three, (and) we went four, five, six."

Mason Williams held on to second in a time of 16 minutes, 38 seconds, just behind winner Cody Bollum of Deer Park and his 16:23.

Brandon McCoy led the decisive line of Cardinal runners in fifth at 17:05 with Tanner Henry (sixth/17.07) and Tyler Pena (seventh/17:09) completing the group. Medical Lake got personal records from McCoy and Henry. The remaining Medical Lake finishers are listed in the West Plains Scoreboard.

"Brandon (McCoy), our No. 2 kid went out a little hard, but that's the way he races - that's the way Mason (Williams) races - you can't really hold them back," Blankenship said. McCoy actually led the race at the half-mile mark.

"Tanner (Henry) probably had the saving race for us," Blankenship said. "He's been running the four, five guy for us," but was third Tuesday.

The ML boys ran a well-planned, calculated race.

"I think our three, four, five guys did a pretty smart thing," Blankenship said. "They weren't way up there in front, but they weren't out of it."

It was just a matter of hoping that Deer Park did not come back, and they didn't. "They just got away from the next Deer Park kid," Blankenship said. "At the two-mile mark we were definitely winning."

"Their coach is yelling, 'Hey, hey, we're behind,' and I'm yelling 'Hey, we've got a chance of winning this,'" he added.

On the girls' side, Deer Park cruised to an easy win 28-56 over Medical Lake. The Cards lost 40-56 to Colville.

"We've gotten beat by Freeman and Colville in dual meets; we will beat them both at Districts," Blankenship said. That's because the Cards will augment the efforts of Riley Olmstead (20:56/sixth) and Mariah Pena (21.10/seventh) with the addition of Britney Kenady who has been unable to compete recently because of meets falling on religious holidays.

The District 7 event takes place today (Oct. 27) at the Chewelah Golf Course, a layout Blankenship said has certain similarities to Colville, but was more difficult.

"If our kids run as well as they did on Tuesday, on Thursday (at districts) and at the state meet, we're going to do exceptionally well," Blankenship said.

The top three finishing teams at districts will earn berths at the Nov. 5 state meet in Pasco.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.