Medical Lake teams continue to pile up PRs, season bests
NEWPORT — With no further competition beyond the COVID-corrected spring sports season, Medical Lake track athletes are working to establish themselves as those others will aspire to in future years.
The Cardinals used a Northeast A League meet at Newport on April 28 to add to what is already a growing list of top efforts by school athletes in both track and field.
Medical Lake’s girls were beyond dominating over their Grizzly counterparts with 124-22 victory against an undermanned team. The boys, very much on the strength of strong work in distance events, had a closer call, but prevailed 82-62.
“They only had a couple of girls running so we were unopposed,” head coach Gene Blankenship said.
Of the numerous victories, Blankenship pointed to that of Kayla Ramsey in the 3,200 meters.
“She moved on to the third-best ever ran at Medical Lake,” he said of her 12 minute, 3.19 second time in a Cardinal sweep featuring Maris Tuck (14:06.37) and Jasmine Cruz (16:05.34).
Ramsey, a sophomore, is also on the leader board in the 800 and 1,600 meters and Blankenship is hoping she can ascend the ladder higher. “I’m hoping she gets at least two of those records, but we only got two more meets to do it in,” he said.
Freshman Kiyah Hatcher picked off a personal record in the 100 meters at in a time of 30.08 seconds while Grace Grubaugh did the same in with the 800 (2:35.22) and the 1,600 (6:03.26).
Amblessed Okemgbo’s 18.90 in the 100-meter hurdles, and teammate Ailahni Viloria (19.62) attained PRs as well. Paige Headrick’s 1:01.26 was a personal best in the 300-meter hurdles as were the marks of Jenna Castro (1:01.58) and Mia Thompson (1:02.86).
Okemgbo’s discus toss of 98-feet, 3-inches was a PR as were javelin throws of iche Okemgbo (68-10) and Laci Sica
(66 feet even). Sophie Salinas-Sanders established a season record of 16-feet, 4-inches in the long jump.
After Aaron Eggleston of Newport surprised everyone with his wins in the 100-meter dash (12 seconds) and 200 (24.25), the Medical Lake boys ran off a string of victories in both the remaining sprints and distance events.
Connor Palmen had PRs in the 400 (55.99) and 1,600 (4:39.87), followed by Quintin Collins’ 800 win (2:07.04). Colton Ellis 42-09 in the shot put earned him not only the event win, but a season record. He also topped the discus with a fling of 134-10.
While Blankenship predicted that if there was a state meet this year that Ellis would surely qualify, he lamented that without bigger competition stages like state or invitationals that the emotion involved to capture school records might not be there.
Medical Lake traveled to Freeman for its next-to-last NEA dual meet on May 5.
Paul Delaney is a retired Free Press Publishing reporter and can be reached at [email protected].
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