Jakosky, Bonino Headline Southern Section Prelims

Anita Siraki of Hoover High, Laura Jakosky of Agoura, Nicole Bonino and Ryan Burnett of La Canada, Mark Nevers of Oak Park and Tom Kubler of Oak Park are among the 513 runners from the region entered in the Southern Section cross-country preliminaries at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut today.

Jakosky and Bonino are defending section girls’ champions at the Division II and III levels, respectively, while Siraki, Burnett, Nevers and Kubler could win their first titles in the section championships at Mt. SAC on Nov. 20.

In team competition, the Nordhoff boys are the two-time defending Southern Section and state Division IV champions and the La Canada girls are the defending section and two-time defending state Division III champions.

Today’s meet consists of 28 qualifying races in five boys’ and girls’ divisions. The first race, a Division III girls’ heat involving La Canada, starts at 7:45 a.m. The last, a Division II girls’ heat including Westlake and Newbury Park, begins at 3:54 p.m.

The leading team and individual qualifiers from each heat--the numbers vary from division to division--will advance to the section championships.

There will be several interesting matchups among teams from the region in today’s meet.

Thousand Oaks, the No. 3-ranked girls’ team in the region, No. 4 Canyon and No. 7 Royal are all entered in a Division I heat at 9:06 a.m.

Junior Jaclyn Pedersen of Royal, the 1998 Ventura County champion, runs in her third race of the season after being sidelined for several weeks with a stress fracture in her left leg.

The No. 4-ranked Thousand Oaks boys, No. 7 Ventura and No. 10 Rio Mesa are entered in a Division I heat at 11:10. Ventura will run without defending section champion Josh Spiker, whose senior season ended Tuesday when an MRI revealed a stress fracture in his lower right leg.

Nordhoff, the defending state Division IV girls’ champion, and Louisville will run in a heat at 1:57 p.m.