Cardinal girls score convincing track wins

MEDICAL LAKE — If last Saturday’s first meet is any indicator, the girls track and field season at Medical Lake could be fun — and successful.

The Cardinal girls raced, threw and jumped its way to pair of impressive victories in an April 15 Northeast A League triple dual meet at home breezing past perennial power Deer Park 84-38 and then Colville 86-43.

The Cardinal boys were beaten by Deer Park 65-53 and tied Colville 54-54.

Mayah Eberhart swept top finishes in the 100 and 400 meters with respective times of 12.75 seconds for a personal record and a school best of 1 minute, 2.41 seconds.

Cross country transfers paced the longer races with Grace Grubaugh winning at 800 meters (2:42.92) in a personal best time. Kayla Ramsey led a one through four sweep in the 1,600 meters at 5:35.98 with Katie Hiatt (6:14.63 PR), Jenna Castro (6:21.92 PR) and Allison Payne (6:27.45 SR) following.

Ellie Acord, Kayla Ramsey, Kiyah Hatcher and Eberhardt finished first in the 4x400 relay in a time of 4:36.31, beating out teammates Grubaugh, Castro, Delaney Gunther and Mia Thompson at 4:54.86.

“On the girls I think we got good performances out of Mayah Eberhardt,” Blankenship said. She went into the No. 7 all-time time in the 100 meters at Medical Lake.

And she also went into the number seven all-time in the 400 as well as anchoring the 4 X 4 relay which, “We won going away,” Blankenship said.

Amblessed Okemgbo led a solid effort from the Cardinal field event participants with a victory in the discus and a throw of 94 feet, 3 inches — a personal best. Ellie Acord flung the javelin 89:09 for another PR.

Kiyah Hatcher’s 4-foot, 8-inch PR numbers were good for a high jump win that was dominated by the Cardinals who had the first four finishes. Okemgbo (4-06, PR), Acord (4-04, SR) and Sierra Hardan (4-04, SR). Sophie Salinas-Sanders won the long jump at 15-06 for a season record and Acord nailed the triple jump top distance at 29-feert even.

In boys competition Eli Trout (11.67, PR) and Preston Dyess (11.71, PR) swept the 100 meters. The two exchanged places in the 200 — part of a 1-2-3 Cardinal sweep — where Dyess, with a time of 23.82, PR) topped Trout (23.93, PR) and Elijah Scott (25.57, PR).

Connor Palmen’s 2:05.32 was tops in the 800 with fellow cross country teammate Quintin Collins time of 4.42:29 leading the way in the 1,600.

Palmen, Dyess, Collins and Benjamin Henry won the 4x400 relay in 3:53.9. Isaac Bliven was first in the long-jump at 18-07.50 for a PR while Bliven’s 5-08 (PR) was runner up in the high jump.

Both Palmen and Collins had league-best times.

“We didn’t run anyone in the 32(00 meters) and probably cost us the meet because we could have gone 1-2,” Blankenship said, but explaining it is too early in the season for his distance runners to tackle that kind of race.

Paul Delaney is a retired Free Press Publishing reporter and can be reached at pauldelaney53@comcast.net.