Medical Lake girls score huge win over Deer Park
Step number one is done as Medical Lake cross country travels down the road to a possible return to the top perch on the podium in Pasco on Nov. 4.
The Cardinals toppled defending 1A state boys’ champion Deer Park on Sept. 27 in Medical Lake, 24-35, and also earned a rare girls’ win as well over the Stags, in an even more rare tiebreaker.
The second leg of the race to another Northeast A League championship continued at home on Oct. 4 with the league title likely hinging on the outcome in competition against Riverside. Next up is an Oct. 11 race at Lakeside.
“We did a really good job, I was really pleased with the kids,” head coach Gene Blankenship said. The team turned in 25 personal records from 34 kids through the junior varsity ranks.
On paper the girls’ meet ended in a 28-28 tie but that was broken by who ended as the No. 6 finisher. That honor went to Abby Warrington whose 24-minute, 58.6-second time and overall 11th place got that spot to break the tie.
“We haven’t done that since they (Deer Park) joined the NEA,” Blankenship said.
Becky George from Deer Park led a 1,3,4 finish for her team with a top girls’ individual time of 21:02.01. ML’s Riley Olmstead was not far behind at 21:26.1 and led to a sweep of spots six through nine.
“Riley (Olmstead) just broke ‘em up and we took everything else,” Blankenship said.
In boys’ competition senior Mason Williams’ 17:08.5 effort was second to Grant Avila of Deer Park who clocked a 16:56.2. Tyler Pena recorded a 17:14 for third place in a march of Cardinals who put all seven runners inside the top-10.
“We didn’t want to race really hard because we had the meet on Saturday,” Blankenship said. “That was our strategy to begin with, let him (Williams) do whatever he wanted and race the rest of the team.”
The Cardinals traveled Sept. 30 to compete against dozens of schools from across the Northwest at the Nike Invitational at Portland Meadows Race Track, earning a third place on the girl’s side and fourth for the boys.
Not only are the girls continuing to surprise in league competition, they did the same in Portland, finishing third with 195 points to Patrick Henry’s 127.
Olmstead was the highest Cardinal finisher for the girls in a time of 20:39.5. Emily Phelps of Ft. Vancouver High School was the individual champ at 19:00.8.
And while Medical Lake was respectable on the boys’ side, they were soundly beaten by Meridian, the team Blankenship expects to have to beat in the state competition in a month.
“They beat us pretty easily,” Blankenship said, 108–254 in a matchup where Meridian won their Nike division’s team title.
The question for Blankenship and his team is, “Can we show improvement over the last part of the season and have a good race at state?”
Williams’ fourth place at Portland in a time of 16:05 broke the previous school mark of 16:20 set by Dominic Rhem.
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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