VALLEY / VENTURA COUNTY SPORTS : CROSS-COUNTRY : Oak Park Takes Early Strides Toward Joining Elite Company

Running well in the middle of September doesn’t guarantee success in late November.

Yet it’s hard to ignore the superb performance turned in by the Oak Park High boys’ cross-country team in the small schools race of the Ojai Invitational at Lake Casitas on Saturday.

The Eagles placed 11th in the Division IV final of the Southern Section championships last year, but they outperformed two-time defending state champion Nordhoff on Saturday in the non-scoring meet.

If scores had been kept, Oak Park would have beaten Nordhoff, 58-70, in the invitational, and, 25-30, if it had been scored as a dual meet.

“It was a sensational day,” Coach Kevin Smith of Oak Park said. “It was very gratifying to run that well against a team like Nordhoff that we have so much respect for. . . . But it was just one small step in a long process that we’re trying to reach this year.”

Smith’s comments were tempered by the fact that Nordhoff was running without injured No. 2 runner Kent Krumpschmidt and that the Rangers are known for peaking at the Southern Section and state championships in late November.

Smith also knows that Oak Park’s performance will be a distant memory in two months if the Eagles don’t place among the top four finishers in the section championships and advance to the state meet.

“That’s our ultimate goal,” Smith said of qualifying for the state championships. “That’s what we’re pointing for.”

Junior Mark Nevers is the only Oak Park runner who has state-meet experience.

Nevers placed second in the state Division IV final last year, and he won Saturday with a time of 15:26 over the three-mile course.

The time moved Nevers to eighth on the all-time course list and was 20 seconds faster than he ran in finishing second in the Ventura County championships at Lake Casitas last year. But the Eagles couldn’t have outrun Nordhoff without the performances of senior Erik Wackenstedt, who was third in 16:17, sophomore Chase Ferrell, 13th in 16:55, junior Ben Saxey, 19th in 17:05, and senior Mike Baclacian, 22nd in 17:10.

The cumulative times of those five runners (82:53) was more than four minutes faster than Oak Park ran last year and vaulted the Eagles to the top of the Southern Section Division IV rankings, but Smith says Nordhoff is still the team to beat at that level.

“Nordhoff knows how to win,” Smith said. “Nordhoff knows how to go to state. We’re not in the same league as Nordhoff when it comes to running like champions in the championship meets.”

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Junior Tom Kubler of Viewpoint won the large schools boys’ race in 15:40 at the Ojai Invitational after setting a course record of 16:13 in a meet at Cate on Friday.

Kubler, runner-up in the state Division V final last year, was expected to run in the small schools race at Lake Casitas, but he entered the large schools event because he thought he’d get better competition.

“We wanted him to get used to the feeling of running in a [pack],” Coach Jay Buckley of Viewpoint said. “He hasn’t had a lot of experience doing that at the level he runs at.”

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The side cramp that limited Jaclyn Pedersen of Royal to a 15th-place finish in the large schools race of the Ojai Invitational was so severe that she underwent tests at a hospital Saturday afternoon to make sure it wasn’t appendicitis.

“I had never felt anything like that,” Pedersen said. “It was so much more painful that anything I’d ever experienced.”

Pedersen, defending Ventura County and Marmonte League champion, felt the pain 200 yards into the race and it bothered her the rest of the day.

“My first thought was to drop out [of the race] because it hurt so much,” she said. “But I didn’t want to do that because the team needed me.”

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The Westlake girls’ team turned in a notable performance in the Division III race of the Woodbridge Invitational in Irvine on Saturday.

Although the Warriors totaled 88 points to finish third behind Santa Ana Foothill (36) and Redlands East Valley (69), the cumulative time of their top five runners was only 27 seconds slower than what La Canada ran at the Division IV level.

La Canada is the two-time defending state Division III champion and was ranked 17th in Harrier magazine’s preseason national poll.

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Senior Danny Finley of Camarillo will try to open his season in the first Pacific View League meet at Mission Oaks Park in Camarillo today.

Finley, the top returning runner in the league, missed the Scorpions’ first two meets because of pain in the big toe on his left foot.

It was feared that the injury was a stress fracture, but X-rays proved negative.

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The Top 10

Rankings of region cross-country teams

BOYS

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RK LW School (League) 1 4 Canyon (Foothill) 2 8 Saugus (Foothill) 3 1 Thousand Oaks (Marmonte) 4 NR Oak Park (Tri-Valley) 5 2 Agoura (Marmonte) 6 NR Hoover (Pacific) 7 7 Buena (Channel) 8 9 Burroughs (Foothill) 9 5 Nordhoff (Frontier) 10 10 La Canada (Rio Hondo)

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GIRLS

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RK LW School (League) 1 1 La Canada (Rio Hondo) 2 10 Westlake (Marmonte) 3 5 Hart (Foothill) 4 2 Nordhoff (Frontier) 5 3 Thousand Oaks (Marmonte) 6 NR Agoura (Marmonte) 7 6 Quartz Hill (Golden) 8 NR Crescenta Valley (Pacific) 9 8 Canyon (Foothill) 10 4 Royal (Marmonte)

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