The Medical Lake cross country team hoped they would get their first glimpse of how the Northeast A League competition might shape up when Riverside and Colville visited last Wednesday.
They’ll have to wait for another day, likely this past Wednesday when the Cardinals traveled to Sontag Park to face Lakeside and Newport — or maybe even next week at the final NEA meet in Deer Park.
Last week the Cardinal boys breezed to a 15-48 win over Riverside and 15-81 versus Colville. The girls meanwhile topped Riverside 26-40 and Colville by a 26-68 count.
“They ran but they didn’t race,” head coach Gene Blankenship said of Riverside. “They ran their seven guys who show up on their best times list. They call it tempo (running). They were just out for a workout.”
Except, that is in the final mile of the boys’ race where freshman Ben Shaw finished sixth, breaking up a Medical Lake top-seven finish that was led — again — by Domenic Rehm’s 17 minute, 1 second effort. Micah Dingfield was second at 17:03 with brother Jacob in at 17:08. Noah Kroeze (17:24) and Mark Jensen (17:32) led the near sweep.
Riverside’s Shaw and Medical Lake’s Mason Williams, another freshman, have been rivals since middle school, Blankenship said. Shaw ran a 17:33 to Williams’ 17:55.
Medical Lake does not hold back their coach said, “Our goal is to get as close to 5 minutes in the first mile.”
”They accomplished that by clocking between 4:55 and 5:06. Being fast in the first mile is the strategy needed to be successful at state,” Blankenship explained. After that “It’s survive,” he added.
A similar thing happened in the girls’ race, Blankenship said.
“We went 1-2-3 in the girls,” he said with Mariah Pena’s 20:25 leading the way and Maleeka Wegner (20:48) and Sakaiya McCoy a second back at 20:49. Riverside ran fifth through eighth.
“Obviously they’re (Riverside) better than that,” Blankenship said. The Rams did run without three of their top-7 competitors.
“I was a little disappointed, I was hoping they would come full-boar at us, especially on the girls’ side,” Blankenship said.
Overall, Blankenship said he was pleased with the effort that failed to register a single personal record. “Our course is tough,” he said.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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