Ventura College Sets School Record on Short Notice

After taking his team to compete in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays last season, Ventura College Coach Tuck Mason was certain it would be the last time.

But Mason believed that Ventura, which is on spring break, needed incentive to train during the vacation for next week’s Western State Conference meet and decided early this week to bring the team to Thursday’s junior college portion of the Mt. SAC Relays.

Ventura’s sprint-medley relay team proved Mason’s change of heart to be propitious.

The quartet of Mike Prudhomme, George Echols, James Craft and Ramon Morales broke a 26-year-old school record of 3 minutes 31.8 seconds in placing second in 3:29.99.

“I swore I’d never come here again because it is so close to the conference meet and I was afraid of injury, but the kids needed something to keep their mind on track during the break instead of snow skiing and going to the beach,” Mason said.

“I didn’t want to come at first, but now I’m glad we did.”

Mt. SAC won the sprint-medley relay in 3:29.24. MiraCosta (3:31.21) and Trade Tech (3:32.72) were third and fourth.

Ventura was fourth after the first two 200-meter legs, but Craft, a freshman from Buena High who placed fourth in the Southern Section 3-A Division championships last season in the 400 meters, moved the Pirates into second behind Mt. SAC with a 49.1-second 400 leg.

Entering the 800-meter anchor leg, Morales trailed Mt. SAC’s DeWayne Gill by 25 meters after taking the exchange from Craft and by 15 meters entering the final 100. However, Craft almost caught Gill down the final straightaway.

“We didn’t even know we were going to come here until the last minute and I didn’t feel I ran well,” Craft said. “We were relaxed and weren’t even thinking about a school record. It was a surprise.”

In other events, Angela Arrington of Antelope Valley placed second in the women’s invitational discus with a toss of 141 feet. Marcy Cochran of Ventura placed fourth with a toss of 135 feet 6 inches.

Noelle Righer of Moorpark placed fourth in the women’s 1,500 in 4 minutes 41.78 seconds, 0.24 behind third-place Louise Ronnerman and 0.75 behind runner-up Suzanne Castruita, both of Mt. SAC. Grace Padilla of East Los Angeles won in 4:35.77.

Ventura’s Robin Rendau, Carla Besamat, Liea Wittkins and Crystal Nutting combined to win the sprint medley in 1:53.31, and Tricia Mathiesen of Moorpark was sixth in the 3,000 in 10:42.7.