Cardinals finish a surprise second at State

Medical Lake's suddenly overachieving boy's cross country team continued to impress, surprising many, including their coach with a runner-up finish at the 1A state championships Saturday, Nov. 7 at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco.

Deer Park won the team title, topping Medical Lake 62-94 and led a three-way sweep by Northeast A League teams as Lakeside was third with 126 points.

Cardinals' head coach Gene Blankenship said this team surprised him, "A little bit," because going in he pictured a finish anywhere from first to fifth.

"Deer Park was just too strong on the day, that's all there was to it," he said. "They've beat us every time we've run against them."

Medical Lake, the two-time defending state champions got a sixth place from sophomore Mason Williams who turned in time of 16 minutes, 24 seconds for the 5,000 meter course. Tibebu Proctor and brother Tamire Proctor from Northwest High School finished 1-2 in respective times of 15:32 and 15:44.

Cardinal senior Jacob Dingfield was 13th in a time of 16:40. Sophomore Brandon McCoy had a personal record for 5,000 meters in a time of 17:22. Other Medical Lake finishers are listed in the West Plains Scoreboard found on page 3.

On the girl's side junior Mariah Pena finished 20th in a time of 20:18 and was the lone Cardinal participant.

"I think we ran as well as we could on the day, that's all there is to it," Blankenship said.

The difference between fifth and second - or even winning - he said was "We just ran better (runners) one through five, except for Deer Park. Actually, they put six guys ahead of our fourth."

Watching the race it was obvious that Deer Park had won, Blankenship said.

But for second place it looked close at first between Medical Lake, Lakeside and Kings.

"But as it turned out it wasn't close," Blankenship. "We just ran better all the way through than Lakeside."

Despite the solid team finish against some tall odds, some individuals were disappointed, Blankenship said.

"Mason (Williams) wanted to be farther up, but he still finished No. 1 for us," Dingfield was catching Williams but struggled the last 100 meters.

Had Riverside made it as a team Blankenship said it was likely the league would have nabbed the top four spots.

"I don't know what more I can say, we're really excited about finishing second," Blankenship said.

Looking ahead to 2016, Blankenship said the NEA appears to have a slightly different look as Chewelah drops down to 1B, trimming to two the number of team entries to state. "But that's next year, we'll worry about that next year," he said.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaneyatcheneyfreepress.com.