Moorpark Coach Alters Cross-Country Course

The 20th Moorpark College cross-country invitational will be held today, but the course has been changed to protect the innocent, among them local homeowners, members of the wild kingdom and 200 or so distance runners.

Because of a housing development, on-campus construction and relocation of the school’s exotic animal complex, the upper part of the course has been remapped.

Moorpark Coach Manny Trevino, who reasoned that the homeowners would be put out if 200 runners stampeded across their front yards, said that the new 3.95-mile men’s course is more difficult than the previous 4-mile layout.

“The runners will have a shorter recovery between hills,” Trevino said Wednesday. “There are a lot of 300-yard uphills followed only by a 100-yard downhill before another uphill.

“The team ran it yesterday and they said, ‘Coach, what are you trying to do to us?’ ”

The Moorpark men’s team will be led by sophomores Ramon Perez (formerly of Rio Mesa High) and Chris Pressman (Simi Valley) and freshmen Matt Thompson (Agoura) and Paul McCarter (Thousand Oaks). Sophomore Anna Howald, another Rio Mesa graduate, will lead the Raider women.

Trevino likes the new course--odds are that the neighbors do, too--but he still has a few worries. Part of the course will take runners across a new parking lot, which has yet to be paved. Trevino was uncertain if the lot would be surfaced before today’s meet, which starts with the men’s race at 3 p.m. and concludes with the women’s 5,000-meter race at 3:45.

Let’s see, instead of sending the runners through the parking lot and behind the tiger cage, how about just sending them through the mountain lion cage?