Exceeding expectations has been the Ventura College track and field team’s forte this season.

And with the Western State Conference championships coming up they look to push even further and capture the conference crown.

The Pirates’ don’t have the usual amount of runners, but they make up for what they lack in numbers by practicing hard and with intensity.

Head coach Tim Gutierrez believes the team has talent and is headed in a positive direction.

“Overall our guys are working hard,” Gutierrez said. “Our expectations around here are to win championships, and right now I think this team is headed toward that direction, and certainly we have some good athletes on this team that are good building blocks to head in that direction.”

Pirates runner T.J. Castillo, who competes in the 100, 200, 4X100 and 4X400 yard events, believes that while expectations have been met, they still aren’t finished and need to work hard to get where they want to go.

“We’ve surpassed everyone’s expectations [and] we’ve been coming out here and just killing a lot of the teams,” Castillo said.

“We just got to keep working hard and we could surprise ourselves coming up at the championships.” 

Pirates runner Raquel Ormsby, who competes in the 100 and 200 yard sprints, realizes that they don’t have a lot of runners, but the team has come a long way and has shown itself as a team to be reckoned with.

“The team is performing pretty well,” said Ormsby. “We’ve come a long way this season with the little people that we have.”

According to Guitierrez, the Championships will be a great test to see where the program is and how far it needs to go to perform at a championship level, but the competition will be strong and tough to match-up against with a small amount of runners.

“It’ll be a good gauge to see where we are as a program this year,” said Guitierrez. “We’re going to go up against some great competition, Bakersfield and Glendale and Moorpark. Those are some tough opponents.”

While the Pirates have come a long way this season the season is far from over, as they look to take a big step forward and surprise themselves and everyone else at the WSC championships Saturday, April 24 at Moorpark College.

Guitierrez believes a collective effort will be needed in order to give the Pirates a chance.

“For us it’s going to take a total team effort on both sides,” Guitierrez said.

“You never know what’s going to happen [and] that’s why we’re going to show up ready to go and hopefully we’ll have our intensity ready to go to.”