It came as no surprise that Melissa Skiba repeated as champion Wednesday at the adidas/Oak Park cross country invitational.
The fact that Oak Park placed five additional runners in the top 10 behind the talented senior was a pleasant surprise for coach Kevin Smith.
Unfortunately for the Eagles, they couldn't complete the varsity sweep, as Thousand Oaks' Kevin Joerger covered the 3-mile course at Oak Canyon Park in 15 minutes, 54.1 seconds to hold off Oak Park's James Goldstein (16:18), leading the Lancers to victory with 49 points, ahead of Newbury Park (54) and Westlake (60).
Skiba clocked 18 minutes, 23.7 seconds - a 13-second improvement from last season - to win her second race in six days, including the senior-class competition Friday at the Seaside Invitational in Ventura.
Kaycee Holcomb (19:54.9) took second and Jessica Reints (20:29.4) was fifth for Oak Park, which prevailed with 25points, well ahead of Newbury Park (70). The Panthers were led by Shannon Byrne's fourth-place finish (20:26.7) and Nicki Ghazarian took third (20:18.5) for fourth-place Westlake (95).
Sara Deluca (20:31.1) and Jana Peale (20:38.8) finished sixth and seventh for third-place Agoura (90).
With Westlake relying on a pack mentality - the Warriors' five scoring runners took 10th through 14th - to conserve energy for Saturday's Woodbridge Classic in Irvine, Thousand Oaks prevailed in the first battle with its Marmonte League rivals.
Newbury Park's Sean Grumney (16:23.1), Talmage Jones (16:30.1) and Willson Horne (16:41.9) completed the top five.
- Erik Boal
