The two-time defending state 1A boy’s cross country champions from Medical Lake are realizing what they knew all along heading into the 2015 season.
That is there was likely to be a new king of the hill, but it would quite possibly still come from the Northeast A League.
Following their first two Northeast A League meets against Deer Park, Riverside and Lakeside, Cardinals’ head coach Gene Blankenship is seeing the Stags as the team keeping the 1A title in Eastern Washington.
Medical Lake’s latest reality check came last Wednesday, Oct. 7 at Riverside’s Bear Lake where Lakeside scored wins of 24-31 over Medical Lake’s boys and topped the girls 26-35. “Lakeside is stronger than we thought they would be,” Blankenship said. The Cardinals did earn a win in the boy’s race over Riverside, 16-45 but lost 22-34 in girl’s competition.
Sophomore Mason Williams took the individual title for the boys in a time of 17 minutes, 7 seconds and is undefeated in NEA competition. Troy Traeger was runner-up and led Lakeside’s 2-3-4-5 finish with a 17:25.
“That’s what killed us,” Blankenship said. “In all honesty, with about a half-mile to go we had that group broken up.”
Brandon McCoy was sixth at 18:18 for the Cardinals with Evan Peterson (18:21) and Tyler Pena (18:22) – all sophomores — leading the group of youthful Medical Lake finishers. Just 20 seconds separated positions 4–8.
“We didn’t run Jacob on Wednesday,” Blankenship said of his ailing senior, Jacob Dingfield. “If you throw Jacob in there and he finishes where he’s supposed to, it comes out to a 24-28 win for us.”
In girl’s competition, as with the boys, the Cardinals faced two of the best teams in the state in Blankenship’s estimation.
“Again, Mariah Kroeze ran a pretty good race,” finishing eighth at 22:33 and well back of winner, Lakeside’s Mikayla Shuler, who clocked in at 20:42. Medical Lake was also missing its top female runner to date in Jenavieve Cogswell.
Saturday the Cardinals traveled to Sandpoint for the William Johnson Sandpoint Invitational at Travers Park.
“Everybody that beat us was a big school — other than Cheney — the other schools are really large,” Blankenship said of the group of Idaho 5A and 4A schools.
Dingfield, working on rehabbing in order to compete in postseason and specifically at districts, ran in the JV race and “ran away with it,” Blankenship said,
Issues with injuries are not at all new to Blankenship and the Dingfield family as it was last fall when Dingfield’s older brother, Micah, was also battling a nagging injury. “We had to take it easy on Micah last year,” he said.
Medical Lake’s boys were fifth with 139 points. Coeur d’Alene won the team title with Cheney’s Drake Johnson the top individual at 16:25.5 and Williams crossing 12th in a time of 17:04.5.
The Cardinal girls were seventh with 184 points, well behind host Sandpoint’s 37. Mariah Kroeze finished 24th in a time of 21:15.7. Caitlin Conway from Coeur d’Alene was the top female in a time of 18:42.8.
Medical Lake hosted Newport this past Wednesday and rested both Dingfield and Williams and Blankenship was able to reward dedication shown by others on the team with places in the varsity rotation.
“I have two seniors (Alex Carl and Jeremy Ryan) that have been with me for four years and actually one of them has been with me since middle school so he’s been with me for six years,” Blankenship said.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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