Cardinals XC send two teams to state

Concerns that his teams might be left at home for Saturday’s state meet on Pasco’s Sun Willows golf course faded relatively quickly for Medical Lake cross country coach last Friday and Saturday.

With Reid Headrick racing to yet another dominating performance in an entirely new environment at Apple Ridge XC course in Yakima on Friday, he helped the Cardinals earn yet another team berth to state.

Lakeside with 38 points easily won the team title with Medical Lake (86) and Riverside (114) leading a one-two-three NEA finish

On Saturday, in the familiar surroundings of the Chewelah Golf Course Kayla Ramsey and Jenna Castro gave Medical Lake two of the top four individual placements and helped them to a runner-up, but still a slot at state. Lakeside (38) topped Medical Lake’s 51 to earn the two team berths to state.

For the first time is years, the 1A District meet was split with the boys traveling to meet District 5 competition from the Yakima area. With guarantees of state berths to the host district, Blankenship feared a stumble might end a gaudy string of state finishes.

There would be none of those.

Since Blankenship took over the job in 2010 the Cardinal boys won state titles in 2013, 2014 and 2017, were runners-up in 2015 and 2016 plus they added a third (2019) and fourth last year. The girls were also runners-up in 2021.

“Exciting Friday and Saturday,” Blankenship posted on Facebook. “Reid Headrick and Kayla Ramsey led our teams to second place finishes. They qualified us for state, 11th time for boys and fifth time for girls.”

Headrick’s 15 minute, 11.36 second time gave him another dominating finish with a 41-second margin over Barrett Poulsen (15:52.42) from Freeman on the short 3,000-meter cross country-specific course. Third-place runner, Hayden Blank (15:59.53) from Lakeside gave the Northeast A League a sweep of the finishers and seven of the top-10. Headrick earned the District and Bi-District MVP for his effort.

Nakai Ornelas (14/16:51.05), Hector Gomez (17/17:04.89), Garrett Montney (21/17:13.94), Sam Ornelas (34/17:51.71), Milan Contreras (49/18:16.37) and Laban Kumenda (87/19:49.30) are the remainder of Medical Lake’s state qualifiers.

At Chewelah, Ramsey’s 19:25.1 landed behind Sadie Meyring (19:02.6) from Lakeside with Castro fourth at 20:18.7 in the traditional 5,000 meters. Kaylee Dennler (13/21:32.7), Jasmine Cruz (14/21:50.1), Kaitlyn Wiley (18/22:38.7), Hazel Grubaugh (20/22:48.2) and Michalyn McCollough (31/26:01.2 will also represent Medical Lake at state.

“The girls’ race was 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) and they had four PRs,” Blankenship said. “Kayla battled her nemesis from Lakeside (Sadie Meyring) and ran a superb race.”

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