Tuzak Strikes Gold at Regional Final

The remaining Ventura College tracksters with a chance to advance to the CCCAA State Championships competed at Riverside City College on Saturday with three Pirates punching their tickets to the final weekend of the season. Cynthia Tuzak highlighted the regionals for VC with an upset win in the women's discus while Brieanna Tafoya and Olivia Burton also moved on to state. They join Kimora Pooler and Adan Cruz who had qualified for state a week ago.

Tuzak came in as the No. 2 seed and just needed to finish in the top six to move on to San Mateo next week. After a safe first-round throw, Tuzak's second round throw of 129'8" salted away the win. In fact, Tuzak's best three throws of the day all surpassed the distances achieved by the second and third place finishers.

Tafoya was the second Pirate to advance placing fourth in the women's 800 meters in a lifetime best 2:15.22. Her time also ranked her No. 4 in the state and tightened her grip on the No. 2 spot by  in school history.

Burton was the final Pirate to move on as she placed fifth in the Women's 5k race., Needing to place in the top 6 for an auto advance, Burton found herself 11th after the first of three miles, needing to finish in the top-6 to advance to state. She gamely fought her way into and held the fifth spot during the last four laps, finishing in a time of 18:32.74.

The Pirate women, with only four team members scoring, placed eighth overall as a team out of 28 participating colleges.

"We have a fine contingent of young people advancing to San Mateo next week," commented head coach Tony Veney.

The CCCAA State Championships will be held Friday and Saturday May 17 and 18 at the College of San Mateo. Already qualifying a week ago, Cruz will race the 10k Friday at noon while Pooler  will compete in the shot put at 1:30 pm. Tafoya runs the 800m preliminaries at 3:20 pm while Tuzak will compete in the discus at 4:00 pm. Burton will run her 5k at 4:25 pm to round out the Pirate competitors.