Mile record also belongs to Ramsey

SPOKANE – The shorthanded Medical Lake track team still made more history at the Mooberry Relays held April 22 at Rogers High School in Spokane.

Named for Jack Mooberry, a hall-of-fame coach at Washington State from 1945-1973, the event features both track and field events and draws entrants of all sized schools from across the region.

“It was an interesting day, unfortunately it is our prom night so we got there with maybe half of our team,” head Coach Gene Blankenship said. “But the kids that went I thought had some pretty good performances.”

While a number of athletes stayed away from this optional competition, that group did not include record-setting Kayla Ramsey. She used the day to establish yet another school record, this time in an age-old distance — the mile.

Ramsey established the new mark at 5 minutes, 15.98 seconds and finished second overall to Charlotte Pedersen from Mount Spokane at 5:15.67.

What the former record is remains somewhat of a mystery because it is a distance from head coach Gene Blankenship’s era of over a half-century ago.

“Nobody ever kept track of it,” Blankenship said. “We do have a top 10 and Kayla now holds the school record in the mile as well as the 1,600 meters. The mile is about nine meters, 30 feet, longer than the 1,600.

The girls Distance Medley team of Kaitlyn Wiley, Hazel Grubaugh, Adasha Gardner and Jenna Castro finished sixth overall and also moved to No. 2 on Medical Lake’s all-time top-10 list in a time of 13:49.27.

Chiche Okemgbo finished second in the shot put at 37 feet, 11 inches and fifth in the discus with a PR in 106 feet, 3 inches.

Notable among the boys events was the distance medley team consisting of Hector Gomez, Dakota Phillips, Garrett Montney and Nakai Ornelas finished a respectable tenth place

“The boys had six PRs for the day and the girls had three, making it a pretty competitive day,” Blankenship noted.

On a lighter side of the competition was the coaches 4X100 where the school finished second amongst small schools.

After landing the “bye” in Northeast A League competition last week, Medical Lake traveled to Newport April 26 in a meet that also included Lakeside.

On April 29 the split squad will be in both the Shoreline Invitational in Bellvue and Undeberg Invite in Ritzville.