Mount Hebron senior Becky Yep turned in a dominating performance at the Howard County cross country championships held at Centennial High School on Thursday afternoon.
Yep jumped out into the front of the pack just after the starting gun was fired and she never looked back. After each half mile, her lead over the competition grew larger.
At the end, Yep was all alone as she entered the stadium into the final stretch and won her first county crown by 38 seconds with a time of 20:03.
“That was definitely my goal, to get out as fast as I could and make as big of a gap as I could,” said Yep, who finished in second place last season.
She added: “In my senior meet, I really wanted to make an impact this year…I’ve run enough races to know how it feels to finish poorly and I hate that feeling; that is what I think when I’m running.”
Reservoir’s Alyse Gibson and River Hill’s Leanne Young ran neck-and-neck down the home straight away for second place and it was Gibson (20:41.2) who edged Young (20:42.7) to take the runner-up spot. Howard’s Hollie Adejumo (20:50) finished fourth.
On the boys side, the field was wide open as only one runner, Mt. Hebron’s Constantine Matsakis, that finished in the top 10 of last year’s county race returned this season.
First-year cross country runner Robbie Creese of Glenelg used this meet as his coming out party. The junior held off a strong pack that included Atholton’s Matthew Pacheco, Reservoir’s Eric Schuler and Matsakis, who finished second through fourth respectively.
Creese, in a time of 16:56.1, pushed ahead down the stretch to hold off Pacheco (16:59.8) and Schuler (17:01.8) for the title.
“I was going to trying to stay with the leaders and try to kick it at the end,” said Creese.
But the individual winners could not push their respective teams to the overall victory as River Hill’s girls and Mount Hebron’s boys took home the team titles.
Coming into the race, River Hill’s girls were the favorite to repeat as champions. But with a couple of runners battling the flu and a few injures, Hawks head coach Earl Lauer needed his team to step up.
That is exactly what happened as the defending County championships placed three runners in the top ten. Young led the way for the Hawks, finishing in third place while teammates Payton Lawrence finished sixth (21:00.9) and Anna Demaree took 10th place (21:19.6).
“I had to move a couple of [junior varsity] kids up but they had been running well,” Lauer said of Jennifer King and Kelley Sullivan. “That was the biggest thing but Young, Lawrence and Anderson stepped up. King came out of no-where-ville to step up.”
Heather Anderson and King, River Hill’s lone senior, finished 12th and 18th respectively for the Hawks.
“I’m really, really proud of our team,” said King. “This is only the second varsity race that I’ve ever run and it’s crazy how a couple people got sick but we have so much depth. The fact that we could still step up and still win, it’s just phenomenal.”
Yep and Mt. Hebron (95 points) finished second and Oakland Mills (126) claimed third. Sarah Brand and Tiffany Lang both finished in the top 10 at fifth and eighth respectively for Oakland Mills.
Along with Matsakis, Russell Buescher finished in the top 10 of the boys race in 17:14, good enough for sixth place. Teammates Kevin Mertz (14th) and Karthik Venkatraman (16th) helped Mount Hebron to a total of 64 points and the title.
Defending champion Atholton claimed second place (90) and River Hill (95) finished third.
“We were really working on building that back pack and Russell Buescher really stepped it up today, pulling ahead of Scott Heydrick from River Hill,” said Matsakis. “River Hill was our main competitor so we were trying to beat them because they beat us a lot this season.”
Heading into next week’s regional competitions, the newly crowned Mt. Hebron’s boys will try for their second straight state title while River Hill’s girls are looking to make it three consecutive state championships.
River Hill Girls and Mt. Hebron Boys Take Home Titles
She added: “In my senior meet, I really wanted to make an impact this year…I’ve run enough races to know how it feels to finish poorly and I hate that feeling; that is what I think when I’m running.”
