Dameworth, Farrell Win Cross-Country Meet at Royal

Freshman Bryan Dameworth of Agoura and Christy Farrell of Thousand Oaks High turned in the leading performances by Valley-area runners at the Royal cross-country Invitational at Moorpark College on Saturday.

Hart won the boys medium school team championship and Thousand Oaks finished second in the large school division.

Dameworth’s victory in the medium-school race was his third straight of the season. His 14:57 effort over the 2.9-mile course was the second fastest of the day. John Williams of Hueneme won the large-school race in 14:48.

Although he is only a freshman, Dameworth was never seriously challenged after the 880-yard mark and finished 100 meters ahead of Hart’s Frank Flores, who ran 15:13.

In the girls large school division, Westlake finished second. Thousand Oaks was third.

In other action, Melissa Sutton led Newbury Park to an easy victory in the Woodbridge Invitational at Irvine. Sutton set her second consecutive course record with a time of 17:01, breaking Heather Scobie’s mark of 17:39. Scobie, a sophomore at Saugus, finished second in 17:49.

Third-ranked Newbury Park placed five girls in the first 14 runners to win the team title with 44 points. Eighth-ranked Mission Viejo finished a distant second with 127.

Hart, which has the fourth-ranked team in the 3-A, placed five runners in the first 14 finishers to easily win the medium-school championship at Moorpark. The Indian’s 43 points were well ahead of Alemany’s 72 and Rio Mesa’s 81.

In the large-school race, Palos Verdes, the first-ranked team in the 4-A, narrowly defeated second-ranked Thousand Oaks, 53-57. In the girls division, Farrell of Thousand Oaks led from the start to finish to win in 17:33.