Area Teams Seek Answers in Cross-Country State Meet

Will the Agoura High girls’ cross-country team make it three Division I titles in a row?

Can Hart do likewise in the boys’ Division I race and gain a measure of revenge against Thousand Oaks?

Can the Nordhoff boys win their second title in a row, the girls their third?

These questions will be answered Saturday in the state cross-country championships at Woodward Park in Fresno.

The Agoura girls will be favored, but the Hart boys will be underdogs to Thousand Oaks, which defeated Hart in the Southern Section championships last week.

The Agoura girls entered the Southern Section championships at Mt. San Antonio College as the No. 2-ranked Division I team in the state behind Peninsula, but the Chargers defeated the Panthers, 42-56, to win the section title.

The top four teams in each division at the Southern Section championships advanced to the state meet, setting up an Agoura-Peninsula showdown for the fourth time this season.

Hart is ranked second behind Thousand Oaks in the boys’ Division I after the Lancers’ convincing 53-104 win last week.

Thousand Oaks Coach Jack Farrell said the relatively flat 5,000-meter course will help Hart, a team loaded with accomplished track runners, but Indian Coach Gene Blankenship regards the Lancers as prohibitive favorites.

“We’ve run some pretty good times up there the last two years, and we’re going to go after them,” Blankenship said. “But they’re the definite favorites. They just killed us last week.”

The Nordhoff boys’ and girls’ teams took their lumps earlier this season but won the Division IV team titles in the Southern Section championships.

Margarito Casillas of Hoover (Division I boys), Ryan Wilson of Agoura (Division II boys) and Maribella Aparicio of Fillmore (Division IV girls) are expected to roll to individual state titles.

The match-up between Agoura sophomore Amy Skieresz and Fallbrook senior Milena Glusac in the Division I girls’ event could be the most intriguing race of the meet.

Glusac, the defending state champion, set a course record of 17 minutes 15 seconds to win the Mt. SAC invitational in October, defeating Skieresz by 42 seconds. Skieresz has not lost since.