Thousand Oaks Runners Put Top Ranking on Line

The Thousand Oaks and St. Francis highs boys’ teams and the Agoura girls are the three top-ranked squads from the Valley area that will run in the Southern Section cross-country preliminaries at Mt. San Antonio College today.

All three are ranked first in the section in their respective divisions.

Undefeated Thousand Oaks also is ranked first in the state Division I poll and fifth in Harrier magazine’s national poll while Agoura is ranked second in state Division I and eighth in the nation.

St. Francis is ranked fourth in state Division III.

Seniors Brandon Del Campo of Thousand Oaks and Kay Nekota of Agoura and sophomore Kevin Koeper of St. Francis will lead their respective teams in the meet, which serves as a qualifying competition for next week’s section championships.

Agoura junior Amy Skieresz, the defending Division I champion, will miss the meet because she was in Las Vegas on Friday to attend her sister’s wedding but will run next week if Agoura qualifies.

One of the more interesting races of the day could be the second heat of the boys’ Division I-A at 1:30 p.m. which will include Hart, Palmdale and Canyon as well as Channel Islands’ Francisco Sandoval.

Hart, the three-time defending state Division I champion, is ranked third in the section, Palmdale is fifth, and Canyon was among the top 10-ranked teams for much of the season.

The meet begins at 7:30 a.m.