Yes its true, Thousand Oaks Boys are the official Marmonte League Champions for 2010! 

The closest team battle in a decade required a review course in league rules, and unfortunately an erroneous result was initially reported.  A coach from another team incorrectly accounted for the points awarded in regular season and league finals standing.  He was awarding points based off of number of wins, i.e.  6 points for TO and NP, 5 points for WL and Royal, etc.  Using this approach you get a tie on points between Westlake (5 season + 7 finals = 12) and TO (6 season + 6 finals = 12), with the tie going to the winner of the league finals race.  But that's not how the rules are written. 

The Marmonte League constitution clearly states in the determination of league champions for cross country, in regards to both dual meets and league finals, that the places are awarded point values and in the case of ties, the points shall be divided.  Therefore, the correct way to account for league points is by using "place points" (1 point for first, 2 for second, and splitting ties). 

Using this correct method, TO and NP each earned 1.5 points for tieing at 6-1 regular season records (1st and 2nd divided by 2), while WL and Royal each earned 3.5 poing for tieing at 5-2 (3rd and 4th divided by 2).  Then league finals earn place points in the same way (1 for first, 2 for second, etc.).

 
Below are the points for the regular season for the Varsity Boys:

 
TO (6-1) -1.5 pts
NP (6-1) -1.5 pts
WL (5-2) -3.5 pts
Roy(5-2) -3.5 pts
SV (3-4) -5   pts
MP (2-5) -6   pts
Cal(1-6) -7   pts
Ag (0-7) -8   pts

 
Here are points based on league finals:

 
WL -1 pts
TO -2 pts
NP -3 pts
Roy-4 pts
SV -5 pts
Cal-6 pts
Ag -7 pts
MP -8 pts

 
Adding the two columns together for each team = final league standings (lowest point total wins):

1. TO -3.5 pts
2. WL -4.5 pts
3. NP -4.5 pts
4. Roy-7.5 pts
5. SV -10  pts
6. Cal-13  pts
7. MP -14  pts
8. Ag -15  pts

As a result, Thousand Oaks is the outright winner of the league with 3.5 points, with Westlake and Newbury Park tied for second with 4.5 points. 

This is an unfortunate situation that no wanted to occur, and to make it worse, the error survived almost a day and was reported incorrectly in the Ventura County Star.  The Westlake boys ended the night thinking they were league champions only to have their elation deflated, and the Thousand Oaks boys missed out on the opportunity to celebrate their league championship the night of the event. 

Congratulations TOHS boys for a rightly deserved league championship title!  We also must congratulate Westlake and Newbury Park teams for a hard fought season, and wish them the best of luck in the post-season.

Now on to CIF!!

Ventura County Star Article

The rules can be found at http://www.marmonte.org/bylaws.htm  Thanks to Coach Morris for providing this clarification and going to bat for the team!