League Final Is Just Cake for Mortensen : Cross-country: Thousand Oaks runner breaks seventh course record. Newbury Park wins boys’ race.

Kim Mortensen of Thousand Oaks High finally met her match at the end of the Marmonte League cross-country finals at College Park on Friday.

After breaking her seventh course record this season, Mortensen couldn’t outrun teammate Todd Disney, who applied chocolate cake to her face and sweatshirt in a post-meet food fight.

Mortensen lost that encounter, but it was a sweet day for the Thousand Oaks program. The Lancers won a second consecutive girls’ title without the services of Tara Marsden and Erin Sorensen, who were sidelined by stomach flu.

Marsden and Sorensen were the second and third runners on the state’s second-ranked Division I team for most of the season, but even without them, the Lancers took six of the top 12 places to total 33 points. Agoura, with Mary Higgins finishing third and Jessica Lepisto placing fifth, finished second with 50. Westlake was third at 75.

Mortensen timed 17 minutes 4 seconds over the three-mile course to post a 72-second margin of victory over Westlake’s Joy Pompilio and slash 43 seconds off the course record she set last week.

Freshmen Amanda Armstrong (18:43) and Melissa McBain (18:49) placed sixth and seventh for Thousand Oaks, followed by junior Tamra Savage (18:54) and senior Katie Scherrei (18:57) in eighth and 11th.

“We’ve been trying to cut down on the gaps between us and today we were able to do that,” Mortensen said. “Hopefully, this is something we can build upon for [the Southern Section meets.]”

Disney won the boys’ race in 15:05, but Newbury Park upset the Lancers in the team battle, 51-62. Camarillo finished third with 65 points in a hotly contested race.

Based on their places at two miles, Camarillo had a 65-68 lead over Newbury Park with Thousand Oaks third at 73. But Newbury Park, second to Thousand Oaks in dual-meet competition this season, finished strongly.

Matt Swartz moved from fourth to second in the last mile to time 15:31 and teammate Ross Wood went from fifth to third (15:32). Patrick Dolan and Mitch Beck, 18th and 20th at two miles, placed 10th and 11th in 16:00 and 16:02 as the Panthers tied three-time defending champion Thousand Oaks for the overall league title, their first since 1983.

“I’m still shaking,” Newbury Park Coach Mike Stewart said. “When our guys came by us after the first mile, most of them were back in the 20s. I figured there was no way we could make that up. We were getting killed.”