A Mile of Bad Road Costs Jakosky a Top-Five Finish

The faster you run, the higher your expectations.

But as your expectations increase, so do your chances of falling short.

Laura Jakosky of Agoura High learned that in the state cross-country championships at Woodward Park in Fresno on Saturday.

Jakosky, a junior, ran 18:31 over the 5,000-meter course to cut 19 seconds off her previous best at Woodward Park. But she threw up her hands in frustration after the race because she placed sixth for the second consecutive year.

“That’s not what I hoped for,” said Jakosky, who won nine of 11 races before Saturday. “Second is what I thought I could get.”

Junior Sara Bei of Santa Rosa Montgomery was heavily favored to win the Division II title. Jakosky was regarded as a top-three contender after running 17:51 to finish a half-step behind junior Amber Steen of Newport Harbor in the Southern Section final at Mt. San Antonio College on Nov. 20.

Jakosky got off to a good start Saturday in the first race of the meet.

She was third after a half-mile, but she dropped to seventh at the mile mark and was 10th at two miles--29 seconds behind second-place Janie Nolan of Antioch and 14 seconds back of fifth-place Steen.

“She ran well in the last mile,” Agoura Coach Bill Duley said. “But she had a bad mile after that first half-mile.”

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Cross-country can be a contact sport. Just ask Jason Lanning of Buena.

Lanning finished 15th in the Division I boys’ race but he might have finished higher had he not been elbowed by a competitor in the first steps of the race.

“That just knocked me back,” Lanning said. “It was like I started in the back of the pack after that.”

Despite his slow start, Lanning was in 36th place in the 192-runner field after the first mile and in 19th at two miles. But he fell five seconds short of reaching his goal of a top-10 finish.

“I can’t complain, though,” Lanning said. “Nobody expected me to finish 15th two weeks ago.”

Although he won the Channel League title on Nov. 4 when defending champion Josh Spiker of Ventura missed the meet because of a leg injury, Lanning wasn’t a shoo-in to reach the final of the Southern Section championships.

He did that by finishing ninth in his preliminary heat and placed sixth in the final with a school-record 15:22 clocking at Mt. SAC that cut 26 seconds off his previous best on the 2.95-mile course.

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Natalie Stein of North Hollywood, who burst onto the City Section cross-country scene as a freshman in 1997, finished a disappointing 43rd in the Division I girls’ race.

Stein placed 13th in the 1997 state final and was eighth last year.

“I wish I could give you some brilliant answer but I can’t,” Coach Gary Smith said of Stein’s performance. “It was just not a good day, but we don’t have any excuses.”

Stein was 25th after the first mile, but she never made a move toward the front of the pack and finished in 19:36, 1:07 slower than she ran last year.

“She never looked that good in the last three weeks,” Smith said. “She looked really good in the [Sunset Six League finals on Nov. 4]. She was light on her feet and lively.

“But she never looked the same after that.”

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The Nordhoff boys’ and girls’ teams capped a decade of excellence with second-place finishes in the Division IV races.

The Ranger boys, who finished behind McFarland, won six state titles in the 1990s to go with two second-place finishes and a third while competing at the Division III or IV level. Nordhoff didn’t qualify for the 1990 state meet after finishing a nonqualifying fifth in the Southern Section Division IV final.

The Ranger girls, second Saturday to Corona del Mar, won five state titles this decade, with two seconds, a third, a fourth and a seventh.

The McFarland boys, with six titles, a fourth, a fifth and a sixth at the Division IV or V levels, is the only team that can rival Nordhoff.

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Nothing is official, but Coach Ken Reeves of Nordhoff said the Rangers will probably be moved up to Division III next year because of an increase in school enrollment.

The move would put Nordhoff and La Canada in the same division for the first time in four years and revive a good rivalry.

Nordhoff beat La Canada, 49-65, for the 1996 state Division IV girls’ title, but La Canada moved to Division III the following year and won state titles in 1997 and ’98.

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The Top 10

Final rankings of cross-country teams from the region

BOYS

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RK LW School (League) 1 1 Canyon (Foothill) 2 2 Nordhoff (Frontier) 3 3 Oak Park (Tri-Valley) 4 4 Thousand Oaks (Marmonte) 5 5 Camarillo (Pacific View) 6 6 Agoura (Marmonte) 7 7 Hoover (Pacific) 8 8 Ventura (Channel) 9 9 Monroe (Valley Mission) 10 10 Buena (Channel)

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GIRLS

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RK LW School (League) 1 1 Nordhoff (Frontier) 2 2 La Canada (Rio Hondo) 3 3 Canyon (Foothill) 4 4 Thousand Oaks (Marmonte) 5 6 Westlake (Marmonte) 6 5 Louisville (Mission) 7 7 Ventura (Channel) 8 8 Royal (Marmonte) 9 9 Agoura (Marmonte) 10 10 Quartz Hill (Golden)

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