Camarillo Ends Dry Spell by Beating Thousand Oaks

It’s not often that a high school track coach gets doused with Gatorade, yet Camarillo’s Dennis Riedmiller was dripping in the stuff Thursday after it was announced that the Scorpions defeated Thousand Oaks and Westlake in a Marmonte League meet.

“This has never happened to me before,” Riedmiller said as he wiped Gatorade out of his eyes. “But it feels good. . . . It’s been a long time since we’ve beaten Thousand Oaks.”

No one was sure exactly how long it had been since Camarillo beat Thousand Oaks, but assistant Mike Smith guessed the Scorpions’ last victory over the Lancers came in 1979 when they were still in the Channel League.

Camarillo, led by the triple winner Jeremy Fischer, totaled 80 points, followed by Thousand Oaks (74) and Westlake (16).

The Scorpions (3-0, 2-0 in league meets) won only three of the 10 track events--Thousand Oaks won the other seven--but were victorious in five of six field events.

Fischer won the high jump (6 feet 4 inches), long jump (21-4 3/4) and triple jump (43-8). Matt Alecock won the pole vault at 12-6 and John Romansic won the discus with a personal best of 142-11.

“We came up huge in the field events,” Riedmiller said. “And we knew that was going to be a key for us.”

Trailing, 53-52, after 10 events, Camarillo put the Lancers away over the next five events as Mike Wygant won the 300-meter intermediate hurdles in 41.9 seconds, Fischer led a 1-2-4 Scorpion finish in the triple jump--a event in which he was competing for the first time--and Alecock headed a 1-3-4 placing in the pole vault.

Allan Sadowsky finished second in the 200 with a time of 23.1 and Eleazar Hernandez capped the streak with a first-place time of 9 minutes 22.7 seconds in the 3,200.

“This was a total team effort,” Riedmiller said. “Mike Wygant (who also won the 110 highs in 16.1) really came through for us in the hurdles, and Romansic and Ryan Fischer got us off to a great start with a one-two finish in the discus. That was eight points right off the bat.”

Rob Scherrei and Jeff Fischer led Thousand Oaks (1-1, 1-1). Scherrei won the 100 in 11.1, the 200 in a personal best of 22.4 and anchored the 400 relay team to victory in 44.8.

Fischer upset Hernandez in the 1,600, 4:25.6 to 4:29.2, and added a third-place finish in the 800 with a time of 2:02.7.