Medical Lake runners impress coach

After just one meet, Medical Lake cross country head coach Gene Blankenship is ready to go out on a limb when looking forward to the 2024 season.

But over his multi-decade career as a hall-of-fame running coach, the 82-year-old has earned the right to make bold predictions.

His teams participated in the Timberlake Farragut Invitational, Sept. 7 and were among the top finishers in the 1A ranks of the multi-class event.

The Cardinals finished 20th in the boys amongst 30 schools and over 200 individuals and 13th in girls with 168 runners and 25 schools.

"Just about the entire GSL was there, and all of Southern Idaho's top big teams," Blankenship said. "There was a lot of teams, a lot of good teams."

What he saw were times that showed improvement from a year ago, naturally with many of the same athletes who've returned.

Kaylee Dennler finished No. 8 and was the top Medical Lake finisher — boys or girls — in a time of 19 minutes, 53.12 seconds. Paisley Taylor from Meridian near Boise won at 18:35.06.

Of special interest to Blankenship was the girls losing as a team to perennial league champion, Lakeside, but topping upstart Colville in the team standings.

Nakai Ornelas was the top boys finisher, 49th overall, behind Coeur d'Alene's Maximus Cervi-Skinner at 15:12.68 on the 5,000 meter dusty course.

With the help of both Hector Gomez (No. 62/17:50.80) and Garrett Montney (107/18:51.01), the ML boys finished ahead of both Lakeside and Colville.

Blankenship will certainly ruffle feathers suggesting, "I think that we can qualify for state with the boys." And that is with just the current one team allocation for the now four-team Northeast A League.

A move to offer a regional qualifying race could improve those numbers.

Behind Dennler at Farragut were Hannah Luzier (No. 71/22:37.44) and Mya Gardner (72/22:39.11) as well as Autumn Trout (92/23:10.45), Katelyn Hoffer (115/24:17.66) and Makalia McKenny (145/25:50.06).

Blankenship held off on a seventh girls varsity runner in the opener but hopes to have that spot closer to being filled Saturday at Hermiston, Oregon.

The much smaller girls team has a number of runners that the coach sees battling for varsity slots. The team is in a state of flux with new athletes being added on almost a weekly basis.

The boys ran a full contingent with Hector Gomez finishing behind Ornelas in 62nd in a time of 17:50.80. Garrett Montney (107/18:51.01), Loghan Bradley (147/19:41.00) and Aiden Murillo (154/20:00.10). Jesse Burt (200/21:45.60) and George Pitts (205/22:23.66) currently represent the varsity group.

While the event at Farragut had a full JV division, Blankenship purposely held athletes out of the race.

"A lot of them did not run because we didn't think they were ready to run yet," he said.

Blankenship questioned the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) new downward revised seven practices to qualify to compete.

"It's not enough," Blankenship said.

Both the ML boys (8th) and girls (3rd) earned respective pre-season rankings in the state coaches’ poll.

The next test comes Saturday in Hermiston at the Runner Soul Fest. That event will serve as a better barometer for the program. Those competing at Farragut ran faster than they did in 2023 at Hermiston.