John Carroll’s Tauber outruns fellow juniors Dulac and Linde to win at Mount St. Mary’s

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By Craig Amoss

Schools came from as far away as Pennsylvania and New Jersey to run in the annual Peter Geraghty Invitational at Mount St. Mary’s.

Elizabeth Tauber came from behind to win it.

The John Carroll junior had to overcome both the fast-starting Maura Linde of Century and a formidable challenge by McDonogh’s Madeline Dulac in a fast-paced race that saw the first seven finishers come in under 20 minutes.  Tauber crossed the line in just over 19:10, two seconds ahead of her IAAM rival and nearly nine seconds ahead of Linde, the defending Class 2A champion.

“I was a little worried coming in,” she admitted afterward. “All I kept thinking throughout the race was to keep them in sight and stay within range.”

Even more worrisome was the fact that she had trouble getting her breath all during the first mile, something that had John Carroll coach Rob Torres practically holding his own breath.

“I saw her flinch a little at that first mile, and usually when that happens it means she’s having trouble,” he said.

As the race neared its final mile, and having pushed past one competitor she hadn’t race against before (Linde), she now set her sights on the familiar figure of Dulac just ahead of her.  If Tauber had any advantage at this point, at least she was chasing down an opponent she knew.

“It is (an advantage) but it also can be hard,” she said. “You know she isn’t going to give up and even if you pass her, she’s going to keep going. And even once you get her, you can’t let up because you know she’s not going to stop trying.”

Finally, with about three-quarters of a mile to go, Tauber finally took over the lead, a lead that she stubbornly refused to relinquish despite Dulac’s best efforts.

“I honestly didn’t know she was here until we got up to the starting line,” the McDonogh junior said afterward. “Then I looked over and saw the John Carroll coach, and I was like, ‘Oh, hi.’”

The three top finishers were soon greeted at the line by last year’s winner, Gaithersburg’s Abby Spitler (19:29), Quince Orchard’s Stephanie Joson (19:31), Good Counsel’s Katie Koenig (19:31), Northwest’s Britt Eckerstrom ((19:47), Century’s Kirsten McGovern (20:22),  McDonogh’s Jo Baird (20:23) and Bishop O’Connell’s Devin Nihill (20:28).

O’Connell used strong pack running, placing all five  of its top runners in the top 15 to win the team title, 27-42, over second-place Century. Bel Air, Northwest and McDonogh rounded out the top five.

Although his performance certainly suggested the opposite, DeMatha’s Corey Puffett had a few concerns of his own going into the boys race, namely not doing well in two previous attempts in this invitational, and recent surgery to correct a sinus condition, which severely curtailed his summer training.

“I didn’t run here last year, but my first two years here I’d always get caught up around that first flag by the tennis courts and I’d have to spend the rest of the race just trying to catch up,” he said.  “Today I wanted to make sure I got out strong and make sure I didn’t get boxed in.”

Strong indeed.  The DeMatha senior took command at the start, outdistancing Loyola’s Matt Jablonski and WCAC rival Billy Ledder of Gonzaga, for a relatively easy win on the rolling course. (Official times were not immediately available.) And while he didn’t exactly put it on cruise control, he throttled down noticeably by the last mile, perhaps as much a concession to a delayed training session as anything else.

“Ever since I started running in freshman year, I’d get sinus infections about every three or four weeks, “ he said. “I’ve been running with them ever since I got to DeMatha. We finally went to a specialist and that’s how we found out about it; I didn’t know what was going on. So we did the surgery and I wasn’t able to start training until about late July. I really wasn’t looking so much to get out like I did today as just trying to see where I was.”

Where he was and where he was going proved to be too much for the rest of the field. Jablonksi, Loyola’s talented junior, appeared on several occasions to be making headway, but could never close the gap enough to test his late-starting opponent’s fitness level.

“I was just trying to slowly catch up to him,” said Jablonski afterward. “And a couple of times, he’d start to come back to me a little bit, and then he’d surge a little bit more. So after about a mile. . .I was just trying to maintain what I had.”

Preventive maintenance kept him ahead of a field that included Gonzaga’s Ledder, Good Counsel’s Kyle Graves and Jack Riely, South River’s Richard Pineda, Gonzaga’s Colin Leibold, Century’s Nick Pezza and John Carroll’s Ben Pickett. Delone Catholic’s (PA) Chris Savageau rounded out the top 10.  

Defending WCAC champion Gonzaga repeated as team champions, outpointing conference rival Good Counsel, 58-81. Loyola (99), Quince Orchard (209) and Century (221) made up the top five.