Ventura Cross Country Teams Qualify for SoCal's

The Pirates' men's and women's cross country teams both qualified for the Southern California Regionals with strong showings at the Western State Conference Championships in Moorpark Friday. The VC men placed fourth of 11 scoring teams while the women came in sixth of the eight teams in the meet. Joshua Weinerth, Adrian Valdez and Erick Tienda paced the men in seventh, 10th and 11th place, respectively while Sophia Godina came in fourth for the Ventura women to lead the crew.

Weinerth (Rio Mesa) covered the 4-mile course at Moorpark's Arroyo Vista Community Park in 20:57.8 to place seventh while Valdez (Oxnard) and Tienda (Rio Mesa) finished nine and ten seconds later to place 10th and 11th, respectively. Ramiro Mateos (Oxnard) ran a time of 21:55.2 to place 26th and Zach Lopez (Ventura) crossed the finish line in 23:54.4 in 52nd place for 42 points. Other Pirate finishers included Bryan Guzman (Oxnard) (24:54.8, 67th), Jairo Gonzalez (25:40.1, 74th), Luis Jimenez (Santa Paula) (26:41.9, 78th) and Zaca Leatherwood (North Coast Prep) (29:55.0, 97th). A total of 100 runners competed in the men's race. 

The Pirate men scored 96 points total, coming in behind Moorpark (44), Bakersfield (45) and Glendale (70). Santa Monica was fifth with 127 points.

Godina (Rio Mesa) paced the VC women running her 5k race in 19:12.0 to place fourth with three points. She was followed by Brenda Garcia (Buena) (21:03.4, 23rd, 19 pts.), Christina Cortez (Oxnard) (24:45.1, 41st, 34 pts.), Alexa Hernandez (Oxnard) (25:19.7, 43rd, 36 pts.) and Leslie Cervantes (Oxnard) (26:58.2, 45th, 38 pts.). The race included 54 women finishing the course.

Ventura scored 130 points to qualify for the regional championships in two weeks. Glendale (50 points) won the WSC title followed by Bakersfield (61) and Canyons (89).

The VC men and women next run at the Southern California Regionals on Friday Nov. 4 at the Kern County Soccer Park in Bakersfield.