McLachlan gets opponent’s best wishes

At Deer Park’s home cross country match Tuesday, the unbeaten girls team dedicated the meet to Jim McLachlan, the coach of their opponent, West Valley.

How often does a team in the heat of a league title chase do that for a foe?

McLachlan heads to California soon to begin preparation for a 45-day non-invasive treatment for prostate cancer.

“Coach (Wes) Player was talking to all of us girls about it,” Deer Park distance star Chantel Duenich said. “He said he was really good friends with him and was really upset (McLachlan) had to stop coaching.”

Chantel and her sister Jessica felt they should do something to honor him and thought dedicating the meet to him would be a good idea.

“We talked to Coach and he agreed with it,” Chantel said.

McLachlan, 61, is in his 39th year coaching at WV, a career I’ve followed from the beginning. It has included state cross country team and individual champions and a wealth of trophies, plus a state track title. He is a member of the Washington State Track and Field Coaches Association Hall of Fame

He said he will undergo proton therapy for nine weeks at Loma Linda University Medical Center as a means to kill the cancer without side effects of other forms of treatment or surgery. He leaves this weekend, returns Tuesday night, then drives down Oct. 24 to begin. He said he’ll miss the final GNL and district meets, but hopes to be here for state.

“Treatments are really short, but the form of radiation is so much better,” he said. “It doesn’t do collateral damage. The dose they use scrambles the genetic makeup of cells and doesn’t hurt anything until it hits the tumor.”

While there he said he’ll keep busy on a memoir book of his childhood for his family and finish WV’s track yearbook.

Four years ago McLachlan had his left eye removed because of a cancerous tumor. He was fitted with a prosthetic eyeball, but coached on, getting the elusive state track title in 2005.

He was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer last May and put on a waiting list at the Loma Linda facility in August.

•Chantel ran a course-record 19 minutes, 23 seconds Tuesday during Deer Park’s (5-0) 23-32 victory over the Eagles (3-3) and 15-48 win over Medical Lake. Not only is she adept at running, but she’s in Running Start and will graduate from high school with her two-year college degree.

Riverside’s girls handed Cheney its first loss, leaving DP alone in first.

Bears coach adds duties

Rick Giampietri not only has potential football playoff games to worry about, but also a possible conflict after being named as Central Valley’s interim head wrestling coach this week.

He replaces the departed John Owen, who this summer was hired to teach and coach at West Valley. Joining Giampietri, CV’s wrestling coach from 1989-90 through 1993-94, is another former Bears head wrestling coach, Brett Racicot.

“I told them if they wanted to have a bigger application pool, I would do it for a year and in the spring they could open it up,” Giampietri said. “But if we make a football playoff run, we needed to have an ex-head coach in the room.”

Games to watch

There are several contests worth noting around the area this week in different sports.

Football: We see if the road advantage holds up Friday in the Great Northern League when Pullman (2-1 in league) travels to Clarkston (3-0), Cheney (2-1) is at Deer Park (2-1) and Colville (2-1) is at West Valley (1-2). There could be a four-way first-place tie as the GNL passes its midpoint.

•Chewelah tests Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) on the road in a Northeast A showdown.

Girls soccer: Mead and Lewis and Clark go for first place in a GSL contest at Hart Field, Friday at 4 p.m.

Volleyball: East Valley is at Mt. Spokane tonight. The teams are vying for top seed among 3A Greater Spokane League clubs. … Lakeside is at Freeman, seeking to take a two-game lead in the NEA.