Medical Lake boys repeat as 1A runners-up

If winning a third 1A cross country state championship in four years was not in the cards for the Medical Lake Cardinals, head coach Gene Blankenship will certainly settle for the second straight runner-up finish that occurred in Pasco, Nov. 5.

Because there were plenty of small victories in their 83-95 loss to Deer Park on the fairways of Sun Willows Golf Course. Bush High School was third with 121 points, followed by Riverside's 148 and Lakeside's 155. With the finish, the Northeast A League continued to reinforce their claim as the top 1A league in the state when it comes to cross country.

"Our goal was to beat Deer Park, but they're really good," Blankenship said. The runner-up finish was Medical Lake's fifth consecutive trophy at state. "In seven years that's not bad," Blankenship said.

The Cardinal runners who, in the past three weeks traded a one-point win in the final Northeast A League dual meet, followed by a one-point loss in the districts nine days later, did just fine, despite falling short of the bigger goal.

"When I started looking at my kids' times, Mason (Williams) had a season-best and three other kids had personal records," he said. Williams, a junior, finished sixth overall in a time of 16 minutes, 20.8 seconds, less than a minute back of the top individual, Tibebu Proctor from Northwest High School at 15:22.30.

Williams improved slightly on his 2015 time of 16:24 over the 5,000 meters.

Tyler Pena was the other Cardinal runner to crack the top-20 in a time of 16:37.20, good for a PR for the junior.

The boys' effort was both a strong one and a milestone. "We put five guys in front of Deer Park's fifth (runner), that's the first time we've ever done that," Blankenship said.

As with both the close win and the loss earlier to Deer Park, there was a key to how the Stags earned the win, a much closer margin than in 2015 when they outscored Medical Lake 62-94.

Deer Park had the edge with the second man. "There was just too big of a gap between their second and our second," Blankenship said.

But there's a bright side also in losing to Deer Park, the team that interrupted Medical Lake's run of back-to-back state titles in 2013 and 2014.

"They (the Stags) ran four or five seniors," Blankenship said. Medical Lake on the other hand ran five juniors, a sophomore and a senior, which bodes well for the program in 2017 and a possible return to the top spot on the podium. "We have to see if everybody comes back and stays healthy," he said.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].