Agoura Is Working for Duley

Coach Bill Duley of Agoura High has his boys’ cross-country team riding high four years after nearly retiring because of some unruly runners.

Duley guided the Charger girls’ teams to three consecutive state Division I titles from 1990-92 and has coached two boys and two girls to a total of nine state individual championships during his 15-year career at Agoura.

Yet he almost quit following the 1995 season, when many boys’ runners were unwilling to train hard, two team co-captains got into a fistfight and some team members wrote profanity on his house with shaving cream.

To top it off, the Chargers finished last in the Marmonte League, the only time that has happened to a Duley-coached team.

“I seriously thought about giving it up,” Duley said. “I was so frustrated with what was going on. . . It basically came down to either I tell [the problem kids] I’m not coming back, or they’re not coming back.”

Duley chose the latter and the Agoura boys’ program has since been on the upswing.

The Chargers finished fifth in the Marmonte League in 1996, second in ’97 and ’98 and were fifth in the Southern Section Division II final last year.

Agoura, the top-ranked Division II team in the state, took a big step toward winning its first league title since 1991 when it defeated two-time defending champion Thousand Oaks, 24-31, and Westlake, 22-34, in a double-dual meet last week.

Seniors Seth Neumuller of Thousand Oaks and Kevin Waters of Westlake finished first and second in that race, but Agoura prevailed because of superior depth. Charger seniors Mike Berns, Tim Perram and Jeremy Law and junior Kevin Sullivan took the next four places, and senior Jamin Patel was 12th.

“It’s all come back around,” Duley said. “We’ve got a group of kids on this team who have been together for three or four years and are willing to work hard.”

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The favored Westlake girls defeated Agoura, 25-32, and five-time defending league champion Thousand Oaks, 20-39, last week, but Agoura was without No. 3 runner Helaina Bernstein.

A staph infection in her right Achilles’ tendon kept Bernstein, a junior, out of the race. She is expected to compete in a double-dual meet Thursday against Newbury Park and Simi Valley at Agoura.

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Senior Josh Spiker of Ventura lost his first race of the season when he finished second in the Division I event of the Stanford Invitational on Saturday, but Cougar Coach Bill Tokar was pleased with the senior’s performance.

The reasons:

* Spiker’s 15:22 clocking over the 5,000-meter course was 25 seconds faster than he ran in finishing second to Fernando Cabada of Fresno Buchanan last year.

* Spiker and his teammates weren’t fresh after running two hard workouts during the week.

* Spiker was beaten by a talented runner in senior Ian Dobson of Klamath Union (Ore.).

Dobson, who ran 15:05, finished seventh in the Foot Locker national championships last year, seven places ahead of Spiker, who won the 3,200 meters in the state track championships in June.

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Don’t try telling sophomore Taylor Hermes of Oak Park that cross-country is a noncontact sport.

Hermes was knocked to the ground twice during the first mile of the Division IV boys’ race at Stanford, but he got up to finish 54th in 18:01 and help the Eagles to a second-place finish behind Shasta Central Valley.

Junior Mark Nevers placed first in 15:50 for Oak Park, with senior Erik Wackenstedt ninth in 16:44, junior Ben Saxey 16th in 17:04 and sophomore Chase Ferrell 17th in 17:04.

But Coach Kevin Smith says that Hermes, sophomore Evan Jordan, junior Matt Rice and senior Mike Baclacian could play equally important roles this season as the Eagles’ all-important No. 5 runner.

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Don’t put too much stock in Thousand Oaks’ dismal 25th-place finish in the Division I boys’ race at Stanford.

The Lancers’ top four runners--Neumuller, seniors Ryan Broms and Jon Vella and sophomore Mike Krestyn--ran back in the pack to try to pull juniors Andy Thompson and Brian Gottlieb and senior Dave Haws to better times.

“We wanted to go to a big meet where there was the pressure of competition and see if we could get our fifth, sixth and seventh runners to run better,” Coach Robert Radnoti said. “Right now, we have four [good runners], but we don’t have a fifth.”

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Injuries and illness have hampered the Hart girls’ team in recent weeks.

The Indians were missing juniors Whitney Phillips and Jamie Orlich when they finished sixth in the Division I race of the Bell-Jeff Invitational at Griffith Park on Sept. 25. They also ran without Phillips in the first Foothill League meet of the season at Griffith Park last week, finishing second to four-time defending champion Canyon.

Phillips, Hart’s No. 3 runner, has been sidelined by a hip injury that will keep her out of the Clovis Invitational at Woodward Park in Fresno on Saturday.

Orlich, the Indians’ No. 4 runner earlier this season, missed the Bell-Jeff meet after feeling fatigued. She raced last week after tests for mononucleosis were negative.

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The Top 10

Rankings of region cross-country teams

BOYS

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RK LW School (League) 1 4 Oak Park (Tri-Valley) 2 1 Canyon (Foothill) 3 5 Agoura (Marmonte) 4 7 Ventura (Channel) 5 9 Burroughs (Foothill) 6 10 Nordhoff (Frontier) 7 3 Thousand Oaks (Marmonte) 8 NR Camarillo (Pacific View) 9 8 Buena (Channel) 10 2 Saugus (Foothill)

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GIRLS

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RK LW School (League) 1 1 La Canada (Rio Hondo) 2 2 Westlake (Marmonte) 3 4 Nordhoff (Frontier) 4 6 Agoura (Marmonte) 5 7 Quartz Hill (Golden) 6 10 Louisville (Mission) 7 NR Ventura (Channel) 8 8 Canyon (Foothill) 9 3 Hart (Foothill) 10 5 Thousand Oaks (Marmonte)

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