It required most of the three-mile cross country course at Cal Lutheran, but Newbury Park High senior Sean Grumney finally put his competition away over the final 500 meters.
Behind Grumney’s first-place finish in 16 minutes, 13 seconds, the Newbury Park boys’ cross country team swept a pair of Marmonte League races from host Thousand Oaks, 25-30, and Westlake, 23-32, on Thursday afternoon.
Willson Horne (16:49) and Sean Fought (16:51) both finished in the top five for Newbury Park, which sits in first place at 6-1 at the end of league play with Westlake at 5-2.
Thousand Oaks, which beat Westlake 26-32, is 4-1 after host Moorpark canceled their meet last week due to inclement weather. The decision on how to reschedule that meet has not yet been decided.
On the girls’ side, the host Lancers swept the top three spots led by the junior trio of Melanie Joerger (19:34), Caitlin Turner (19:52) and Kalin Padberg (19:55) and beat Newbury Park 24-31 and Westlake 17-41. The Panthers beat the Warriors 20-42 in the other result.
“We really wanted to take 1-2-3,” Joerger said after the meet. “That was our goal before the race.”
Early in the girls’ race Joerger, Turner and Padberg found themselves at the front of the pack and from there, were able to stave off any challengers.
“We took the lead sooner than we thought we would,” Joerger said. “We run this course every week; we’re used to it. We know where we want to be.”
In the boys’ race, Thousand Oaks junior Sam Worley finished second at 16:21, eight seconds ahead of Westlake senior Jonathan Miller. For most of the race, Worley and Miller kept close to Grumney, but over the last leg he put the race away.
“I was just hoping to be close at the end,” Grumney said, “and then I knew I could rely on my (speed).”
Without their regular No. 4 runner Eric Young, who is recovering from appendicitis, the Panthers needed a strong push from freshman Jonathan Byrne and sophomore Lorenzo Garita to push them over the top in the team scores. Byrne and Garita finished 11th and 12th respectively at 17:05 and 17:06.
Rounding out the top 10 in the boys’ race were Westlake’s Timmy Snyder (16:52) in sixth, Thousand Oaks Michael Spencer (16:58) in seventh, Westlake’s Martin Arreola (16:59) in eighth and Thousand Oaks’ Tyler Hughes (17:01) and Marco Godinez (17:02) in ninth and 10th.
Behind the Lancers top trio in the girls’ race was Westlake’s Nicki Ghazarian (20:03), who finished fourth in front of a quartet of Newbury Park runners — Rachel Ranucci (20:18) in fifth, Sammie Cox (20:18) in sixth, Shannon Byrne (20:20) in seventh and Danike Cline (20:21) in eighth.
Byrne, usually one of the Panthers’ top runners, was battling the effects of a sprained ankle suffered on a recruiting trip. Still, her presence alone on the course helped push her teammates, according to Newbury Park coach Marty Maciel.
“It was great for us just to have her out there,” Maciel said.
Thousand Oaks’ Genevieve Johnson (20:23) and Newbury Park’s Taylor Burn (20:57) rounded out the top 10.
