CROSS COUNTRY: Running on a perfect day for cross country, the Ventura College men's and women's cross country teams qualified for the 2013 Southern California Regionals, gateway to the CCCAA State Championships, at the Western State Conference Championships at Oxnard College Thursday afternoon. Sabrina Sewell led the VC women, finishing in eight place overall, a the Pirates placed seventh of the 14 participating teams. Meanwhile, Edwin Herrera paced the Pirate men with his 21st place finish, leading Ventura to a team finish of a tie for sixth of the 12 participating schools.
The women were lead (as always) by Sewell with a personal best of 19:38 for the 5000 meter course. Brittany Gonzalez (24th - 20:18), Maria Villalobos (27th - 20:25), Brigitte Kiesewetter (45th - 20:55), Maria Canchola (50th - 21:06), Erica Hernandez (59th - 21:29), and Alexi Tolosa (68th - 22:05) rounded out the team placers. The Pirates needed to score in the top eight teams to advance to the SoCal meet and they grabbed the seventh spot, a mere point out of the sixth position. Glendale (56 points), Moorpark (105), Canyons (110), Bakersfield (118), Oxnard (120), Cuesta (153), Ventura (154), and Santa Barbara (172) will represent the WSC at the regional meet on November 8.
"To show you how tough our conference is, this team would have beaten last years state qualifying team, yet we placed four spot lower than last year, said head coach Tony Veney. "But the young women dug deep today realizing if they tripped today, their season was over."
The men also punched their ticket to the regional by tying for sixth place with Los Angeles Valley. The men had to be top seven teams in order to move on. Herrera also ran a seasonal best of 21:54 on the flat 4-mile course. Anthony Rivas (25th - 22:04), Luis Cruz (36th - 22:22), Alex Miron (48th - 22:59), Jaime Luna (53rd - 23:07), Thomas Garcia (77th - 25:43), Richard Bone (78th - 26:09) rounded out the top seven places. Christian Rodriguez and Peterson Sim also performed well for the Pirates coming in with and injury and a bad case of the flu. Canyons (43 points) upset favorite Glendale (49), while Santa Barbara (86), Cuesta (113), Santa Monica (166), Ventura (183) and LA Valley (183) garnered the regional qualifying positions.
"I couldn't be happier the way these young men performed today. We were a non-qualifying eighth two weeks ago and I told them on the walk through yesterday, that sixth place was our goal," said Veney. "When a program gets axed for a year, it can sometimes take years to recover and regain regional status. But after getting our heads handed to us for the first four meets of the season, this group of young men decided it was time to stop taking abuse and start handing some out."
The Southern California Regional Championships will be hosted by College of the Canyons at Central Park in Valencia on Friday Nov. 8. The women's race will go at 11:00 am followed by the men at noon.