Cardinal CC impressive again at Super One

Medical Lake’s cross country teams gave their head coach Gene Blankenship more insight into the possibilities they have moving forward following the Super One Invitational last Saturday in Hayden, Idaho.

The Cardinal boys finished second to Timberlake in the small school varsity division, edged out 67-74 and kept from repeating as titlists. Fellow Northeast A League school Riverside was fourth with 102 points.

The Cardinal girls matched their finish of a year ago with third-place, scoring 99 points. landing behind Timberlake (38 points) and Riverside (45).

Sophomore Mason Williams was once again the top Medical Lake individual, clocking a 16 minute, 50.1 second time on the 5,000-meter course, finishing 30 seconds behind winner Ben Shaw of Riverside. Senior Jacob Dingfield was sixth in 17:29.1.

“On the boy’s side there are 4-5 kids running the same times, Blankenship said. “If they improve, we’re going to be pretty solid.” Those competitors included Tyler Pena, 20th at 18:26, Evan Peterson (18:48.9), Mark Jensen (18:48.9) and Zachary Lewis (18:50.5) who finished 25-27th respectively.

Mark Jensen ran his best race this year so far, Blankenship said. And had that pack of Medical Lake runners each moved up just one position, the Cardinals would have defended their 2014 Super One championship.

Freshman Jenavieve Cogswell was the top Medical Lake girl’s finisher 22:25.5, good for 13th overall and behind the 19:24.3 of the top individual, Taylor Hammond of Timberlake.

“Jenavieve is just running her head off,” Blankenship said. Abby Warrington, another ninth grader, was 21st in a time of 23:33.1 with junior Mariah Pena right behind in 23rd at 23:40.9 and senior Bradyn Wegner 25th with a 23:50.5.

“One, two again,” Blankenship said of the freshmen. “I hope the veterans can start getting in front of them because we’re a lot better team if they do.”

Now begins the real head-to-head tests in the NEA that will ultimately determine who moves on to regionals, and then state.

The first league meet will be Wednesday, Sept. 30 at Medical Lake where the Cardinals face their rivals in Deer Park. The race begins at 4 p.m. The Stags at last check were the No. 2 ranked 1A team in the state with Medical Lake No. 4.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].