Agoura Gets Ready for the Main Event : High school cross-country: Charger boys defeat Camarillo and Westlake in preparation for next week’s showdown against top-ranked Thousand Oaks.

In what could be described as the semifinal bout prior to next week’s championship match, the Agoura High boys’ team defeated Camarillo and Westlake in a Marmonte League cross-country meet at College Park on Thursday.

The Chargers, the No. 4-ranked team in the Southern Section Division II poll, beat second-ranked Camarillo, 25-31, and Westlake, 15-49, in the double-dual meet. Camarillo bested Westlake, 15-48.

John Greene led Agoura with a winning time of 15 minutes 7 seconds over the three-mile course, holding off fellow junior Eleazar Hernandez (15:09) of Camarillo in the final 200 meters.

“I didn’t really have any definite plan coming into the race,” Greene said. “But once we got going, I wanted to make sure I was ahead of him when it came down to a kick.”

The first part of the race was run at an extremely tentative pace. The lead pack came through the mile mark in 5:18 before Greene and Hernandez began to assert themselves.

“Everyone picked it up after we heard the time at the mile,” Greene said. “Eleazar and I were doing a lot of surging back and forth during the last mile of the race.”

The team battle between Agoura and Camarillo also ebbed back and forth.

Camarillo had three of the first four runners at the midway point, but Agoura placed four runners among the top six finishers and six runners ahead of the Scorpions’ fifth man.

“We’ve had a tendency this season to sit back and come on strong in the second half of the race,” Agoura Coach Bill Duley said. “But I was a little worried about them doing that against Camarillo because they usually finish strong.”

That was not the case Thursday.

The Scorpions, running without injured Jeremy Park, lost five points in the last half of the race while Agoura improved by three points.

“I think we had a good effort today,” Camarillo Coach Mike Smith said. “Our guys gave it their best shot, but Agoura is a good team. You’ve got to give them credit.”

Camarillo’s Ben Hill finished third with a time of 15:45, but Agoura’s Craig Wilson (15:56), Chris Lyon (16:07) and Mark Cherman (16:10) followed in fourth, fifth and sixth. Agoura’s Sevan Pulurian placed ninth in 16:16.

“The gap between our No. 2 and 5 runners has been very good the last two meets,” Duley said. “That’s been a big key for us.”

The Chargers won Saturday’s Vulcan Classic in Birmingham, Ala., but they’ll be underdogs in next Thursday’s meet against Thousand Oaks. The Lancers are the No. 4-ranked team in the country and the No. 1-ranked team in the state Division I poll.

Agoura, three-time defending state Division I champion, defeated Westlake, 16-43, and Camarillo, 15-45, in the girls’ meet, despite running without three of its top seven runners.

Amy Skieresz, the third-place finisher in last year’s Kinney national championships, Janet Hwang and Vickie Greene were all out with the flu, but Kay Nekota led a 1-2-3-4 finish by the Chargers.

Nekota, who finished fifth in last year’s state Division I championships, timed 17:36 over the three-mile course, followed by Cathy Prater (19:02), Alison Kaz (19:45) and Carrie Malnekoff (20:03).