CROSS COUNTRY: As she had done all season long, sophomore Sabrina Sewell paced the VC women's cross country team to an at-large state berth Friday at the CCCAA Southern California Regional Championships at Central Park in Valencia. Sewell placed 17th overall of 199 finishers to lead the Pirates with a personal record 5k time of 19:35. Meanwhile, the Ventura men placed 20th of 28 teams, missing a state berth as a team, but Luis Cruz took 1:45 off of his SoCal Preview time to place 88th and receive an individual bid to the state meet in Fresno is two weeks.
The women got things rolling by placing 16th overall of 27 teams and receiving an their at-large team berth. Sewell capped off her stellar sophomore season with her best SoCal finish, followed by Brittany Gonzalez (20:49 - 62nd), Maria Villalobos (20:57 - 70th), Brigitte Kiesewetter (119th - 21:56), Cristina Canchola (120th - 21:58), Alexi Tolosa (140th - 22:33), and Meryem Nafi (175th - 25:25).
"The southern region is tough to advance from," said head coach Tony Veney. "Six of our seven women posted life-time bests on the course and they ran almost four minutes faster as a group and we still could not improve upon our September finish. But getting to the state meet is the prize, and now we have two weeks to rest up, hammer a few workouts and head to Fresno to maintain a tradition of state meet participation started by former coaches Tuck Mason and Nancy Fredrickson."
The men were not as fortunate with their 20th team ranking, failing to receive an at-large bid. Cruz (88th - 23:02) was the team's No. 1 runner for the first time this season and qualified for state by being the 12th-best finisher not on a team advancing to Fresno. He was followed by Anthony Rivas (107th - 23:26), Edwin Herrera (110th - 23:29), Alex Miron (119th - 23:43), Jaime Luna (136th - 24:09), Thomas Garcia (177th - 26:11), and Richard Bone (179th - 26:20) The team produced five life-time bests and dropped over six minutes from their performance in September.
"We're all disappointed not making it to state," said Veney, "but this group of young men helped put our men's program back on the SoCal radar after being away for a season. I am confident Luiz will represent the men's team and the college well in two weeks."
Cruz as an individual and the VC women's team will now gear up for the CCCAA State Cross Country Championships held at Woodward Park in Fresno on Saturday Nov. 23. The women's race begins at 9:00 am.