Pirate Women 3rd, Men finish 5th at Rio Hondo Invitational

The Ventura College men and women's cross country teams balanced the challenging hills of Arroyo Verde Park in their opener last week with a flat and fast course at the Rio Hondo Invitational at East Los Angeles' Legg Lake Friday, with the women placing third (of 12 competing teams) and the men fifth (of 11 teams). Megan Kearney and Jaime Luna paced the Pirate harriers.

Running her first face for the orange and black, Kearny placed 10th overall (19:28) over the 5k course. Maria Villalobos (19.37 - 13th), Amanda Gomez (20.14 - 23rd), Brigitte Kiesewetter (20.26 - 27th), Brittany Gonzalez (20.27 - 28th), Alexi Tolusa (20.32, 30th), Jordyn Vassaur (20.53 - 36th), and Shannon McDermott (21.34 - 44th) completed the scoring in a field of 77 finishers.

The men also showed marked improvement from a week ago, placing fifth, missing the No. 4 spot by a mere eight seconds per man. Luna lead the Pirate men (21.13 - 19th), who also included Anthony Rivas (21.48 - 32nd), Alexis Miron (21.54 - 35th), Thomas McKenna (22.02 - 39th), Paul Gonzalez (22.16 - 45th), Brett Bogdanski (22.26 - 52nd), Thomas Garcia (23.19 - 69th), Christian Rodriguez (23.47 - 75th), Vincent Chavez (24.45 - 86th), Matthew Medina (25.32 - 93rd), and Edgar Cerda (25.45 - 96th).

"All and all it was a good outing for the squad," said head coach, Tony Veney. "I expected all of our times to drop this week, but what impressed me more was the willingness to compete harder and to hurt a little more to help the team. Cross country is not a spectator sport for the people running, and you can't get caught watching other people run fast. Today our young people ran pretty well exemplified by 16 out 19 Pirates getting personal bests."

The teams get a week to train before heading to Woodley Park in Northridge for the Southern California Cross Country Preview on Friday Sept. 19. The first of the two races begins at 9:00 am.