CROSS COUNTRY: The Ventura College men's and women's cross country teams played host at Arroyo Verde Park for the 2013 Western State Conference Preview, giving a look ahead at the next year's conference championship course. With Santa Ana winds literally breaking off limbs and toppling trees, the Pirates performed well on their home course with the women placing fifth of 14 teams and the men finishing eighth of 12 participating teams. Sabrina Sewell led VC with her third place finish and a personal course record of 21:54 and Ed Herrera led the Pirate men in 18th place.
The Ventura women came into the meet ranked ninth from previous competitions against conference competition, but showed a lot of toughness placing fifth overall, a mere six points from the No. 4 spot. Following Sewell, the order of finish for VC included Brittany Gonzalez (23rd), Brigitte Kiesewetter (31st), Erica Hernandez (34th), and Maria Villalobos (44th) to round out the top five.
"We were a little nicked up coming in and I thought a top-5 finish was out of the question," said head coach Tony Veney. "However, the ladies had other ideas and put together our best team effort of the season."
The Pirate men came in ranked 10th in the WSC coming into today's competition (The top seven teams at the WSC championships Oct. 24 will advance to Southern California regionals with a chance to qualify for state.), but put together a tough race placing eighth overall, missing the No. 7 spot by a single point. For the second week in a row Herrera ran in the number one spot placing 18th out of over 125 finishers. Early season number one Anthony Rivas (32nd) followed as Luis Cruz (42nd), Alex Miron (44th), Jaime Luna (64th), Thomas Garcia (65th), and Matthew Medina (68th) constituted the top seven.
"These guys were not even considered to be a team that could advance from the WSC two months ago, but it just goes to show what hard work, effort and buying-in can accomplish," said Veney.
"Both teams still have much to work on in the next three weeks leading up to the WSC finals," said Veney. "The Oxnard College course (site of the WSC finals) provides a different challenge since it has no hills and runs much faster than our home course. We have to become sprinters in the next several weeks or the speed teams will run us out of town."
The Pirates are scheduled to compete at Santa Barbara next Friday, Oct. 11, on SBCC's beach course. The women run at 3:00pm followed by the men at 4:00pm.