Camarillo, Oak Park Reign in Rain

Camarillo and Oak Park won the boys’ and girls’ team titles, respectively, in the rain-soaked Ventura County cross-country championships at Lake Casitas on Friday.

Camarillo won the boys’ title with a 52-63 defeat of second-place Thousand Oaks. Oak Park defeated Thousand Oaks, 50-58, for the girls’ title in a meet that lost a lot of luster when Simi Valley Royal did not run.

Royal won the boys’ and girls’ titles in the two previous county meets, but the Highlanders were unable to train from Sunday through Wednesday because of the poor air quality caused by the Simi/Val Verde fire. And when some Royal runners said they felt awkward and sluggish during a workout Thursday, Coaches Ryan Luce and Jay Sramek decided to bypass the county championships to focus on the Marmonte League finals next Thursday.

The fields were further weakened when highly regarded seniors Tony Arredondo of Oxnard Santa Clara and Katie Gose of Thousand Oaks La Reina did not run because of the inclement weather.

Sophomore Ted Price paced Camarillo to its first county title since 1989 by winning the boys’ race in 16 minutes 50 seconds on a course that was nearly 300 meters longer than the standard three-mile course used at Lake Casitas.

Two lower-level races were run on the standard course Friday, but meet management switched to a predominantly asphalt layout as the rain intensified.

Oak Park senior Lauren Morales finished third to lead the two-time defending state Division IV girls’ champion.

Morales, the defending county champion, clocked 19:58 to lead Oak Park to its first girls’ county title.

Sophomore Kimberly Donatelli of Ventura Buena was a surprise individual winner in 19:37, followed by senior Lisa Novik of Agoura in 19:43.

John Ortega

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A high school quarterback in Illinois asked officials to erase his record-setting pass because his coach made a deal with the opposing team to let him complete it.

Nate Haasis’ Springfield Southeast team let Cahokia High score a touchdown late in a game that Cahokia won, 42-20, on Oct. 25. In exchange, Cahokia made no effort to keep Haasis from completing a 37-yard pass that gave him a record.

After the game, both coaches acknowledged arranging the deal during a timeout.

The completion gave Haasis 5,006 yards for his career, setting a record for the Central State Eight Conference and making him one of 12 Illinois high school quarterbacks to pass for more than 5,000 yards.

But in a letter to the president of the conference, Haasis asked that the pass be stricken from the record books.

“While I admittedly would like to have passed the record, as I think most high school quarterbacks would, I am requesting that the Central State Eight does not include this pass in the record books,” Haasis wrote.