VC Track & Field Sending Four to State

The Ventura College men's and women's track and field teams are sending four athletes to the 3C2A State Championships next week after competition at the Southern California Regionals Friday at Cerritos. Sophia Godina and Brianna Torres will be traveling to Saddleback on May 17-18 to represent the Pirate women while Trevor McCarthy and Erick Tienda will compete for the men at state.

Tienda led the Pirate state qualifiers with an incredible run in the 1500m run. He crossed the finish line in 3:56.16, just .5 seconds behind the regional champion. McCarthy, meanwhile, threw the javelin 183'3" to place fourth in the meet.

Godina ran a 4:48.06 in the 500m to claim the silver medal, just 1.46 seconds away from gold. Torres ran sixth in the 10k run, finishing in 38:59.80 to qualify for next week's state championships.

The VC men's 4x100m relay team of Micah Contreras, McCarthy, Andrew Stuart and Thomas Dore came in eighth in their regional final in which the first and last places were separated by a total of 1.31 seconds. Adrian Valdez competed for Ventura in the 1500m final placing 10th. Liam Genkel also represented the Pirate men Friday with a 14th place finish in the high jump final.

Torres finished 10th in the 5k final and Godina came in just behind in 11th. Cassandra O'Reilly was 10th in both the shot put and javelin finals and Brooke Pyle was 12th in the long jump final. The Pirates' 4x100m relay with Ashley Crist, B. Pyle, Savanna Sprinkle and O'Reilly came in eighth on Friday with a 2.41 second margin in the finals among all the finishers.

Ventura also had several solid performances in the Southern California Preliminaries on May 3, also at Cerritos.

Mason Jekogian came in 13th in the 3000m steeplechase, one place from a spot in the final, and Thomas Dore was 14th in the 100m. Liam Genkel was 14th in the high jump preliminaries and Tienda finished in 16th in the 5k run. Valdez finished 21st in the 800m a week ago.

For the VC women, Stephanie Alanis competed in four events in the preliminaries, placing 17th in the javelin, 21st in the discus, 24th in the hammer and 27th in the shot put. Brooke Pyle was 15th in the 200m and 17th in the 100m while Savannah Sprinkle came in 17th in the triple jump and 18th in the 100m. Crist came in 18th in the triple jump prelim and 23rd in the long jump and Charys Pyle was 12th in the 400m hurdles, barely a second away from qualifying, and 20th in the 100m hurdles. Addy Cornell and Yesenia Molina finished 24th and 25th, respectively, in the 300m steeplechase at the prelims and O'Reilly was 26th in the discus.

The Pirate quartet of Godina, Torres, McCarthy and Tienda will compete at the 3C2A State Championships on Friday and Saturday May 17 and 18 at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo.