Oak Park Lacks Spark in Loss to Rival Agoura

The nonleague track meet between neighborhood rivals Agoura and Oak Park highs Thursday was billed as a classic confrontation between two of the Southern Section’s top 1-A Division teams.

The Chargers possess a powerful distance squad headed by Bryan Dameworth, the state Division I cross-country champion, and the Eagles have one of the section’s top sprint and hurdle corps, led by Jason Stein, Kent Richter and Jess Garner.

“It’s going to be very close,” Duley said Wednesday night as he looked over his dope sheet. “We’ve got the numbers, but they’ve got three or four real talented kids. The field events could decide it. It could go down to the wire.”

The meet may have been close on paper, but it materialized into a rout as Agoura outpointed the Eagles, 91-41, at Oak Park.

“I’d like to say I was holding the kids back for Arcadia,” Oak Park Coach Kevin Smith said in reference to Saturday’s prestigious Arcadia Invitational. “But that’s not what happened. Their attitude just stunk today. I kept hearing one excuse after another about why kids could only run one event.

“The fact is that this was a big meet against their cross-town rivals and they didn’t want to look bad. So they didn’t compete hard.”

Oak Park (3-1) did show flashes of talent. Richter won the 100-yard dash in 10.0 seconds, Stein won the 440 in 50.9 and Garner won the 120-yard high hurdles (15.5) and the 330 intermediates (41.4). The Eagles also won the 440-yard (44.3) and mile relays (3:29.2). The highlights, however, were few and far between.

Agoura (4-0), meanwhile, did not exhibit much flash but was consistently strong.

Dameworth led Agoura sweeps in the 880 and mile, running a season best of 2 minutes, 2.0 seconds in the former and 4:41.5 in the latter.

Mike Armstrong won the long jump (19-3) and 220 (24.0) and teammate Peter Oviatt placed second in the mile (4:42.7) and won the two-mile in 10:03.4 for another Agoura sweep.

Overall, the Chargers won only nine of 16 events. Six of those victories led sweeps, however.

Jeff Ingalls did not win any events, but he broke up Oak Park’s expected dominance of the sprints with second-place finishes in the 100 (10.3) and the 440 (51.5).

In the girls’ meet, Deena Drossin, Jenny Whelchel and Julie Tingle led Agoura (3-1) to an expected rout of Oak Park, 102-24.

Drossin, the state Division I cross-country champion, won the 880 in 2:29.8 and two-mile in 12:48.5.

Whelchel, the defending state champion in the shotput, threw 40-5 3/4.

Tingle won the 220 in 28.0, the 330 low hurdles in 51.6, and anchored the Charger 440 relay team to victory in 52.7.

Dana Neumann won the discus with a throw of 108-1 for Oak Park (2-2).