A 4x100 state three-peat for Medical Lake

The undermanned Medical Lake track team once again overachieved and over-delivered big at the state 1A, 1B and 2B track championships staged May 26-28 at Eastern Washington University's Roos Field.

The Cardinals, team champions in 2014 and runners-up last year, and with just six entrants, finished in a strong third-place tie with 42 points as a team with Kings High School. Zillah won the team title with 58.5 points while Deer Park had 49.

"We beat every one of our league teams except Deer Park and they beat us by seven points," co-head coach Gene Blankenship said.

The Medical Lake boys won for the third consecutive year in the 4x100 relay. They also won in the 200 meter run, were runners-up in the 100-meter dash and seventh in the 110 hurdles.

Medical Lake's girls, behind a sprint sweep in the 100 and 200 meter dashes by Lexi Rolan, plus a pair of fourth-place finishes in the long and triple jump, scored 30 points and were ninth behind champ Naches Valley's 63.

In the 4x100, senior Dawson Lack came out of nowhere - and from five meters behind Port Townsend at the last baton exchange - to win in a time of 42.82 seconds to Port Townsend's 43.05, bursting with pent up emotion as he crossed the finish line.

"I was screaming at him, 'Don't throw the baton, don't throw the baton,'" Blankenship said. "That's an automatic DQ (disqualification)."

Blankenship calls the final 100 meters Lack's best effort. "I can't remember any better," he said.

It was a fitting finish for Lack and the group's second senior, Jared Wright, who has been part of all three championships. Wright and Lack were also on the team as freshmen and took home third place in 2013. "He's the solid mainstay of that whole sprint group," Blankenship said of Wright.

Blankenship had predicted anywhere from a fifth to a second place in the 4x100, all depending on how his athletes performed and elevated performances on the state stage.

The 4x100 was actually a five-man team as Nehemiah Fields replaced BJ Smith on Saturday, following Smith's effort Friday in qualifying that got Medical Lake into the finals Saturday. The move was made on the advice of assistant coach David McNeil.

"We've been running BJ all year at first leg," Blankenship explained. That included districts. But at state the change was made to include Nehemiah Fields. "Nehemiah's actually faster and he's been with us the whole four-year period," Blankenship said.

The gamble paid off because the group ran its fastest time of the year.

Also on Saturday Keyhon Ross, just a sophomore, won in the 200 meter run in a time of 22.22, an eyelash ahead of Kings' Caleb Perry's 22.23 and teammate Lack's 22.83. "In the 100, Dawson beat Keyhon but lost to the Kings' kid (Perry)," Blankenship said. "Keyhon was upset because he lost to Dawson."

In the 200, Ross also missed setting a school record by the microscopic margin of 1/100th of a second.

Junior Olijawan Smith rounded out the boys' competitors, finishing seventh in the 110 hurdles in a time of 16.57.

For a while late Saturday, Medical Lake was in an actual three-way tie for first with Zillah and Deer Park, but the 4x400 and the high jump hadn't finished. Had the Cardinals been able to qualify for another event, a 4x400 team, perhaps, "We might have had a shot at winning another state title," Blankenship said.

For the girls, the effort was summed up in one word, Blankenship said, "Lexi," referring to junior Rolan for the twin wins.

Rolan improved greatly after respective fourth and fifth-place finishes in the 100 and 200 as a sophomore in 2015. "She ran alone in both races, there was nobody there (at the finish)," Blankenship said, with Rolan clocking first place times of 12.46 in the 100 and 25.58 in the 200.

And she accomplished her feat after not having competed but in a handful of events because of injury. "Honestly, I picked her to finish second in the 100 and 200," Blankenship said. "That was a bad thing on my part and I told Lexi that. I told her I made a big mistake."

The Cardinals' two-person team also featured freshman Jaxyn Farmen whose 17-foot, 3-inch long jump best was two feet shy of the winner, Lauren Newman of LaSalle. Farmen logged a 35-flat in the triple jump, three feet out of the lead.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].