The scenic surroundings at Knights Ferry’s visitor’s center and the covered bridge were alive with action on Oct. 3 as the seven high schools from the Valley Oak League tackled the second VOL meet, hosted by Oakdale.

Mustang runners were unable to snare high finishes, but the Oakdale boys battled to a 3-4 record against competing teams after besting East Union, Lathrop and Weston Ranch but falling to Sonora, Sierra, Manteca and Kimball.

Isaiah Aguilar led the way with a sharp 16th place finish on the course while Octavio Padilla (26th), Louie Brichetto (33rd), Mike Chapin (34th) and Ricardo Rojas (39th) ran tough races in the field of 54 runners.

The Oakdale girls out-pointed squads from Sonora and Lathrop that couldn’t field a full team, but struggled to losses against the rest of the conference. A 24-31 loss to Weston Ranch represented the teams’ best shot at another win.

The Oakdale girls were paced by a 24th place effort by Anna Ogden. Liz Erwin was 25th while the rest of the Oakdale runners accounted for five of the last seven runners to finish.

Andrew Howard was sixth in the frosh-soph boys race while Kurtis Bishop ran to a 12th and Zane Neubaum 14th. Kyannah Hernandez was eighth for the frosh-soph girls while Kaitlin Aguilar, Jordyn Garcia, Destiny Perez, Ana Jacobo and Marissa Eichman ran together to snare positions 15-19.

The top junior varsity finishers for Oakdale were Chris Davis (13th), Phillip Anglim (15th), Kelsey Hardey (sixth), Emma Andreini (eighth) and Jordan Smith (ninth).

Oakdale is at the VOL championships in Angels Camp on Oct. 24.