CV girls claim emotional cross country title

The familiar voice wasn’t cheering and the postrace hug was missing, but Jamie Lambie knows her mother saw every step as she helped Central Valley race to the Greater Spokane League championship on a glorious Wednesday afternoon.

“I have to think my mom’s here and she’s with me the whole time,” Lambie said after the Bears’ pack rolled past Mead in the final quarter mile at Audubon Park. “Even though she’s not here any more, she’s watching over me. Everything I’m doing, she’s with me.”

Patricia Lambie, 46, was bicycling in support of CV runners during the Spokane-to-Sandpoint relay race when she was struck and killed by a car near Blanchard, Idaho, on Aug. 14.

In Wednesday’s race, CV freshman Rachel Casey surged past the No. 2 Mead runner, then junior Josie Warner got by before freshman Alex Moore came up to lead the trio to a 3-4-5 finish and a 24-33 win over Mead. North Central sophomore Katie Knight destroyed Kinsey Gomez’s record of 14 minutes, 48 seconds by 7 seconds on the 3-mile course.

With Gonzaga Prep (4-2) losing to Mt. Spokane, CV (7-1) is a comfortable leader, facing Rogers next week while Mead (5-1) has G-Prep.

Two months ago no one was sure if the Bears would be in this position as Lambie, who was CV’s No. 2 runner at state last year as a sophomore, wondered if she could run.

“But my mom loved cross country so much this was something I knew I had to do for her, so I stepped up and said I was doing cross country this year no matter what,” she said, fighting back tears. “We made it through.

“It was my team. I wouldn’t be able to it without them. They were with me the whole time, every step of the way. I’m still not through it, but they make everything so much easier. I think if I wasn’t in cross country I’d be a complete mess.”

And they were with her on this day – the five scoring CV runners finishing within 35 seconds of each other and then surrounding her as she tried to talk – just as they have been all year.

“I guess we had two directions to go,” CV coach Dennis McGuire said. “We could have broken into different cliques. We were worried about that. We got them together and told them to focus on our running and our family. I think that allowed an escape for Jamie, a place to go where she felt safe and a place where she had lots of support, lots of hugs from all of her peers.”

The boys had a strong race as Mead sophomore Andrew Gardner and NC seniors Vince Hamilton and Casey Adams went out hard. Adams slipped back a little after the first mile and Gardner built a little gap on Hamilton at the start of the third. Then it was a matter of whether Gardner could get the course record, which was a 15:01 by Matt Davis of Mead more than 15 years ago. Gardner came up 4 seconds short but is only the second runner to break 15:10.

Hamilton and Adams led NC (6-0) to a 23-36 win over the Panthers (3-3) but CV (2-6) was never a factor.