Medical Lake sweeps in Colville XC event

COLVILLE — Medical Lake cross country made it two in a row with the biggest meet of the season upcoming Saturday, April 3 when they host Lakeside and Freeman at 11 a.m.

Ben Henry led a sweep of the top five spots clocking a 5,000 meter time of 17 minutes, 9 seconds. Kyler Castro (17:30), Connor Paimen (17:41), Quintin Collins (17:57) and Sam Ornelas (19:19) were the test of the leaders who delivered a 15-49 win over host Colville and 15-50 vs. Newport.

Kayla Ramsey clocked a 20:30 to win the girls individual event and help the Cardinals claim a pair of 15-50 victories. Katie Hiatt (23:11/4th), Grace Grubaugh (23:37/5th) and Delaney Gunther (24:10/6th) were other top Cardinal finishers.

Head coach Gene Blankenship hoped for more competition in advance of Saturday’s showdown with the team he knows is top competition for his Cardinals. Without that comes the knowledge that his runners are their own best competition for each other.

Next for Medical Lake will be its role as hosts for the NEA championships on Friday, April 8 at a time still to be determined.

Soccer

The Cardinals had their first win of the season, 4-3 at Colville March 22 as Ellie Accord scored twice, Jasmine Simmens had a goal and two assists with Hailey Cross adding a goal. That was followed by a 5-0 loss to Lakeside on March 24.

“We are improving every day and working hard,” head coach Dan Collins wrote in an email, noting the team earned its first victory in five years.

Senior night was March 30 vs. Freeman and Thursday when they travel to Riverside for the last regular season game.

Football

Fresh off a bye week, Medical Lake (0-3 NEA) hosts Freeman (0-3, 1-3) in a rare Thursday, April 1 contest at Holliday Field.

Held scoreless so far, head coach Jeremy Bahr, the week off “focused on us” he wrote in an email. The team had an inter-squad scrimmage and a movie night.

“Freeman is athletic and physical and is well coached,” Bahr said. “Our goal Thursday is to compete on every snap. We gotta’ start winning our one on one battles and do it more consistently.”

Paul Delaney is a retired former Free Press Publishing reporter and can be reached at [email protected].