Sergey Suschikh of Dos Pueblos ran away from the field, but Ventura’s runners formed a nice grouping in the middle of the race and kept to the finish to spoil the Chargers’ home-course advantage Wednesday at the first Channel League cross country meet of the season.
Cougar runners took the second, third, fifth and seventh spots to upend DP in the boys team competition with 26 points to the Chargers’ 40. Buena was third with 96 points followed by Santa Barbara (108) and San Marcos (117).
In the varsity girls race, defending league champion Hannah Kirkegaard picked up where she left off last season and won the 2010 opener in convincing fashion, leading Ventura to the team victory with 25 points. San Marcos finished second with 66 points and Dos Pueblo (74), Buena (78) and Santa Barbara (131) rounded out the field.
Sushchikh destroyed his previous best time by 44 seconds in his last race on the flat 3-mile DP course, winning in 15 minutes, 08 seconds.
“I felt great,” the defending Channel League champion said. “The last lap was a little harder than I thought, but it was good. I’m sure the wind was a factor.”
Sushchikh took command of the race once he left the track and headed for the lower athletic field at DP.
“I sped up on my downhill and there wasn’t anybody with me anymore,” he said.
His teammates, however, couldn’t maintain their pace and were overtaken by Ventura’s Easton Tackett (second in 15:24.18), Kyle Salmonsen (third in 15:42.84), Douglas Petree (fifth in 15:59.11) and Garrett Baker (seventh in 16:01.42).
“At the middle of the race, DP was winning,” Ventura coach Tyree Cruz said. “I told that to my guys and they stepped up and moved up in the race.”
DP assistant coach Len Miller said his runner might have been too pumped up for the event.
“Our guys were so emotionally up for this race it might of hurt them a bit,” he said. “It was fun to run against a great opponent. We’re not happy finishing second, but we’re happy with the effort.”
Bryan Fernandez was DP’s No. 2 finisher in sixth place (16:00.45). He was followed by Max Davis in eighth (16:08.51) and Jacob Bartholomew in 11th (16:21.16) Ben York, Sam Sarmiento and Alfred Scott came in 14th, 15th and 16th, respectively.
“We had an opportunity to win halfway through the race,” Miller said. “Maybe I was outcoached; maybe they ran a little more intelligent race. The obviously had more in the tank in the last half of the race.”
Santa Barbara’s Briggs Deardorff prevented a Ventura sweep of the second through fifth spots by taking third place in 15:49.99.
“I thought he ran a solid race,” said Dons coach Olivia Perdices. “He ran pretty close to the time he ran last year and finished third. I’m pretty happy with how he ran.”
David Phillips was the top San Marcos finisher in 18th place with a time of 17:01.71.
On the girls side, Kirkegaard opened up a sizable lead after the first 800 meters and came in alone in 18:35.
“I decided not to go out super, super hard at the beginning because I’ve battling a couple of injuries,” she said. “I let the other girls take it out. At the first 800, I took the lead.”
Erin Campbell of Dos Pueblos came in second in 19:26 and Aliya Shah of Buena finished third in 19:34.
For Campbell, a DP track star, it was a new experience of running from behind.
“Hannah got out of sight, so I tried to stay with Sophie (Pollack, a teammate) and a Buena girl,” Campbell said. “I was behind them for most of the second mile. I was focusing on their back and staying with them, which is something I’m not really good at. But I kept saying I’ve got to stay with and get a rhythm.”
She passed them on a downhill part of the course and accelerated past other runners to finish in second.
Ventura runners nabbed the fourth through sixth spots, and Santa Barbara’s Kelley Drechsler came in seventh.
Katelyn Rheinschild led a good grouping of San Marcos finishers in eighth place. Royals teammates Rocio Pacheco, Kaitlyn Kuehn and Annie Thwing came in 10th, 12th and 16th, respectively.
In the JV races, Ventura swept the titles while DP took second and San Marcos third in both events.
Hi Len! Good job!!