Area runners perform well at Ventura County Championships

GOING THE DISTANCE—Oak Park’s Courtney Lightfoot races to a third-place finish at the girls’ individuals during last week’s Ventura County Cross Country Championships at Lake Casitas in Ojai. The Oak Park girls’ squad finished first in the team competition, followed by Ventura, Royal and Westlake. On the boys’ side, Westlake’s Cory Primm finished second in individuals, 10 seconds behind Camarillo’s Ted Price. Royal’s Hudson Andrews (third place), Oak Park’s Anthony Pondella (fifth) and Agoura’s Chris Baird (seventh) all finished less than one minute off the overall lead. Royal won the boys’ team competition, followed by Oak Park, Camarillo and Rio Mesa. Two of the area’s high school leagues, Tri-Valley and Marmonte, will be running over hill and dale today in boys’ cross-country meets.

The Oak Park Eagles are favored in the TVL, and the Westlake Warriors are expected to give the Royal Highlanders and the Thousand Oaks Lancers a strong challenge for the Marmonte League cross-country title.

Oak Park is also the TVL favorite in the girls’ race with Westlake challenging Royal and the Simi Valley Pioneers in Marmonte League. The Marmonte race will be held at Agoura High beginning at 2:30 p.m. and the TVL meet will be at La Reina at 3 p.m.

As his Eagles took their practice runs, Oak Park head coach Kevin Smith said he’s delighted with how his teams are preparing for the league and future meets of the championship month.

“The boys are finally coming together,” he said. “They understand the mentality of what it is to run at this level.

(For the girls), Smith said, “It is the start of what will be an incredible season for them.

“This is an important series of meets for us—going from Mt. SAC to Ventura County to the Tri-Valley League. For 80 percent of our kids, this is very important. This showed up in every race. Either they won the small school title or won the overall, regardless of size.”

Regarding the annual meet at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut and today’s league meet, Westlake head coach Joe Snyder said these are the best preparation for the season’s remaining championship meets.

“We like to think as we hit Mt. SAC, it really is a prestigious meet,” he said. “We want to see how we stack up together with how tough the (CIF) Southern Section is. You can do really well at the county meet, but what counts is how we do at league finals and we really want to move on and do as we did last year.”

The Westlake coach said that as his teams run in the league championship, the overall improvement for the boys and girls this season should move both teams up in the final standings.

In the warm-up event, the Ventura County Championships at Lake Casitas last Friday, Royal won the boys’ 3-mile run with a low score of 36 points and a 16:13.09 average time and Oak Park was second at 97 and 16:40.33.

The next eight schools were third-place Camarillo, (107 points) 16:33.96; fourth, Rio Mesa, (137) 16:58.19; fifth, Westlake, (170) 16:58.64; sixth, Thousand Oaks, (184) 17:12.84; seventh, Buena, (192) 17:14.92; eighth, Ventura, (193) 17:14.33; ninth, Hueneme, (202) 17:18.01; 10th Agoura, (204) 17:13.92.

The remaining nine schools running in the boys’ meet were 11th place Moorpark, (278) 17:38.31; 12th Nordhoff, (294) 17:40.34; 13th Malibu, (344) 17:56.89; 14th Newbury Park, (379) 18:04.38; 15th Fillmore, (388) 18:03.85; 16th Oxnard, (500) 19:18.29; 17th Pacfica, (527) 20:13.49; 18th Villanova, (544) 20:00.08, and 19th Channel Islands, (537) 16:13.09.

For the girls the Eagles won the 3-mile event with a low score of 69 points and an average time of 19:23.93, followed by Ventura, (87 points) 19:48.60; Royal, (92) 19:46.58; Westlake, (98) 19:44.03, and Simi Valley, (146) 19:58.97.

“In years past,” Snyder said, “we were battling for a third. We don’t want to settle for a fourthplace. We want to get out there and compete.”

He said that the Royal Highlanders have improved from last year’s teams and that “Agoura has really stepped it up. We think we have a pretty level field and we want to compete against those programs.”

In sixth place for the girls was Rio Mesa, (174) 20:30.52, followed by seventh Thousand Oaks, (205) 20:42.02; eighth Buena, (229) 20:58.23; ninth Moorpark, (235) 21:03.35; 10th Camarillo, (253) 21:11.57; 11th Agoura, (269) 21:33.51; 12th St. Bonaventure, (314) 21:50.96; 13th La Reina, (327) 21:48.39; 14th Oxnard, (335) 22:00.25; 15th Newbury Park, (372) 22:22.97; 16th Thacher, (425) 23:02.53 and 17th Malibu, (574) 24:48.61.

The first five finishers in the boys’ race were first place, senior Ted Price, Camarillo, 15:35.31; second, junior Cory Primm, Westlake, 15:45.21; third, junior Hudson Andrews, Royal, 15:48.16; fourth, senior Chris Sanchez, Camarillo, 15:51.75; fifth, junior Anthony Pondella, Oak Park, 15:57.97.

Next for the boys was sixthplace junior Jun Reichl, Royal, 16:01.75; seventh, junior Chris Baird, Agoura, 16:14.52; eighth, senior Miguel Cisneros, Santa Clara, 16:20.67; ninth, senior Kevin Sullivan, Royal, 16:24.09, and 10th, junior Daniel Benson, Royal, 16:25.28.

Junior Anna Sperry of Simi Valley led the girls’ run with 17:55.02, followed by second Jasmine Hayes, Westlake, 18:26.62; third sophomore Courtney Lightfoot, Oak Park, 18:37.30; fourth sophomore Marissa Diehl, Oak Park.

In sixth-place for the girls was junior Tali Sproat, Moorpark, 19:05.24, followed by seventh senior Kelcie Wiemann, Royal, 19:12.23; eighth sophomore Sally Venable, Ventura, 19:25.72; ninth freshman McKay Shaw, Ventura, 19:28.19; 10th sophomore Victoria Smith, Westlake, 19:28.20.

Snyder said Primm, the same as everyone else on the Westlake team, is putting practice miles in during the season, showing he has the skills to run with the best of those with whom he’s competing.

“He’s learning to race the distance—800 and 1600—on the track he did not run the 2-mile a lot last year,” Snyder said. “He’s coming along and we’re expecting big things for him.”

Regarding Hayes, her coach said that she had a real good season last year in the 3200 and, while not in Westlake Village during the summer, she obviously put the miles in.

“She has been injury free and has been able to stay focused,” Snyder said.

Smith mentioned three runners who especially stood out: senior Angela Gonzalez, senior Tyler Fox and junior Andrew Parrone.

Gonzalez ran as the Eagles’ fifth girl when the team’s No. 2 runner, junior Bree Strenkowski, went down and was not able to finish.

Strenkowski was in eighth-place at the 2 1/2 mile mark at the time.

“We just got a tremendous lift out of Angela who ran 28th overall (20:13.90).

Smith was pleased with Fox who, in 20th place (16:45.07), decided to make a difference in the way he finishing so strong and passing a number of athletes.

“Parrone, 20th (16:45.07) who was our fourth finisher in the varsity boys, brought up our No. 5 runner, Bettisworth, who finished four seconds behind him.”