Medical Lake girls climb atop NEA standings following big wins

See a photo gallery from the event here.

The Medical Lake girls' basketball team got a couple of boosts last week and both allowed the Cardinals to take over sole possession of first place in the Northeast A League.

First, the Cards got a pair of easy victories, 45-32 over Newport and 62-31 at Freeman on Friday to run their streak to six and improve to 5-0 in the NEA and 8-2 overall.

Next, they got help from Deer Park, which scored a 48-46 win over Lakeside that dropped the Eagles a game back in the standings with a 4-1 record (7-4 overall) with the teams meeting at Medical Lake this past Tuesday (Jan. 10) in the first of two games between the two.

The biggest thing for the Cardinals might be Jayda Noble joining the lineup after being sidelined with an injury so far this season. The freshman was an immediate impact player, scoring nine points versus Newport (1-3, 2-7), but 16 to lead her team at Freeman (1-4, 2-9).

"Jayda is a special player," head coach Kyle Lundberg said. "She brings so many great basketball attributes, too many to list; her defense is off the chart."

And Medical Lake played some of its best defense last week, as in half of their eight quarters of play they surrendered single-digit points. Leading 20-13 after one quarter at Freeman, they limited the Scotties to just eight points the next two periods.

"Strong defense in which we can cause turnovers is what we are working towards," Lundberg said.

But the Cardinals showed off a fast-break strategy with a series of long passes down court that were hit and miss, but more hit. Lexi Redell had 14 points and Jaxyn Farmen 10 for Medical Lake at Freeman, a number coming off the quick strikes.

"We want to try and push the ball as much as possible," Lundberg said. "We have a lot of speed on this team and we need to use it to our advantage. Our girls have worked extremely hard at using our speed to outwork and outrun other teams."

Medical Lake raced to a big 15-2 lead last Tuesday against Newport but let the Grizzlies claw back into the contest at halftime, leading just 21-16. They got wiggle room back with a solid 12-6 edge in the final quarter.

This, despite cold-shooting. "We shot 24 percent from the field," Lundberg said. "Not a good shooting game for us, but we created 32 turnovers which was the difference in the game."

Makayla Geiger led her team with 10 points. Redell matched Noble's nine points.

The week concludes with the annual Golden Feather spirit game, tonight (Jan. 12) versus Cheney (7-3) and with a road game against Colville (2-3, 3-8), Friday.

"The spirit game is always a fun game," Lundberg said. "Cheney has a really good team along with a great coach that I respect greatly," in veteran Lorin Carlin.

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

See a photo gallery from the event here.