M & W TRACK & FIELD: The VC men's and women's track and field teams headed to the High Desert Friday to compete in the Western State Conference Championships hosted by Antelope Valley College. The Pirate women finished a solid fifth of the 11 teams competing while the men were ninth of 10 teams. Brooke Dixon claimed the only gold for Ventura with a strong throw in the hammer. She also placed in the shot put and had finished sixth in the discus a week earlier at the prelims. For the men, Montre Lee was third in the 100 meters and Dylan Roberts was third in the long jump for VC's best finishes.
In addition to Dixon, the women had several multiple-scorers. Sabrina Sewell went double silver as she placed second in the 3000 meter steeplechase and the 400 meter hurdles completing what is considered one of the more unusual doubles in the sport. Brittnee Jones (2nd hammer & 3rd shot put), Andisha Steward (5th hammer), Emily Stephenson (6th triple jump), Nisa Contreras (6th 400 hurdles) and the women's 4x100 meter relay (Danielle Colvin, Sidney Walker, Niva Contreras, & Stephenson) ran the total of regional qualifiers to eight in eight different events. The women finished 5th overall in the team standings with 93 points as Glendale won the meet with 188.
Lee (3rd 100 meters), and Roberts (3rd triple jump) were the top finishers for the Pirate men with Lee narrowly missing making it through in the 200 meters by five one-hundreds of a second. Other Pirate men advancing included Ruben Juanillo (6th 1500 meters), Andrew Herbold (6th 400 hurdles), Steven Lang (4th hammer), Keenan Davis (5th triple jump), in addition to both the 4x100 (Jordan Oliver, Beard, Ryan Oliver & Lee) and 4x400 (Lee, David Ramirez, Guidry & Herbold) meter relays. Canyons took the men's title while the Pirates finished ninth.
The Southern California preliminary rounds starts with the Discus and Javelin on Friday May 2 at 1:00 pm, with the rest of the running and field events starting at 11:00 am on Saturday May 3 in Riverside.