Green Gets Job Done; Moorpark Places Fifth

Doni Green is making quite a debut as Moorpark College’s head men’s and women’s cross-country and track and field coach.

Green, a longtime Moorpark assistant before last fall, guided the men to their second consecutive state junior college cross-country title in November and both Raider teams finished fifth in the Southern California track championships at Cerritos College on Saturday.

The Raider men have been a consistent top six-finisher in the Southern California championships in recent years, but this was the first time the men and women finished among the top five in the same year.

The Moorpark women were regarded as a top-three contender after winning the Western State Conference championships two weeks ago, but they lost Crystal DeNaeyer to a strained hamstring in the Southern California preliminaries on May 2.

DeNaeyer was the WSC champion in the 400 and 800 and the anchor on Moorpark’s 400 and 1,600 relay teams.

“I just told them that we’ve got to go,” Green said. “That we can still finish in the top three with a little bit of luck.”

San Diego Mesa won the women’s meet with 95 points, followed by Mt. San Antonio with 85, Long Beach City with 83, Santa Barbara City with 72 and Moorpark with 66.

Dolores Tuimoloau of Moorpark, the 1994 state champion in the girls’ shotput for Channel Islands High, won that event at 44 feet 2 inches, placed fourth in the discus at 121-6 and finished eighth in the hammer throw at 121-6.

Moorpark’s Amanda Grubb was second in the hammer at 132-10 and Shannon Livingston placed third in the 100-meter high hurdles in 14.89 seconds.

Livingston also ran legs on teams that finished fourth in the 400 relay in 49.45 and fourth in the 1,600 relay in 4:04.61.

Erica Arana ran the anchor leg on Moorpark’s 400 relay, finished third in the javelin at 121-11 and placed eighth in the long jump at 17-2 1/4.

She also finished third in the Southern California heptathlon championships in April.

“The girls have all come through,” Green said. “They’ve competed well.”

Rey Coronado paced the Moorpark men with a second-place time of 9:21.23 in the 3,000 steeplechase and a sixth-place effort of 15:08.66 in the 5,000.

Glendale’s Julio Serratos won the steeplechase in 9:20.32 and Moorpark’s Uzziel Gray placed fifth in the 5,000 in 15:08.63 to help the Raiders to a 40-point total.