Cross-Country
Osbourn Park Girls, Oakton Boys Take Oatlands Titles With a Smile
Osbourn Park's Ariel Karabinus, right, overtakes Brook Point's Katherine Walker on a pivotal hill en route to victory in the Oatlands Invitational.
(By Joel Richardson For The Washington Post)
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Sunday, September 27, 2009
A large smiley face was painted Saturday on the biggest hill of the cross-country course at the Oatlands Invitational meet in Leesburg. Whether meant in irony or mockery, when Ariel Karabinus saw it, she smiled back.
The Osbourn Park senior took everything the 5K course threw at her, physical or psychological, and broke the tape in a chip-timed 18 minutes 30 seconds to earn the win in the girls' race.
"When you're in pain, just smile and you'll get over it," Karabinus said.
Karabinus, along with senior teammate Ashley Wybersky, who was seventh, propelled Osbourn Park to the team victory. The Yellow Jackets (116 points) finished ahead of 36 other schools, including runner-up West Potomac (150), Western Albemarle (199) and O'Connell (200).
In the boys' race, runner-up Andrew McCullen led Oakton to a 14-point margin over second-place Mountain View. Battlefield was third (264 points) and Good Counsel (269) finished fourth. Cody Pelliccioni of Morgantown, the defending West Virginia state champion, was the individual winner in 15:49.
Karabinus, an All-Met in 2007, found herself running stride for stride with Kaitlyn Davis (Mountain View) and Katherine Walker (Brooke Point) nearly the entire way, including the smiling hill. But she delivered a knockout punch after cresting it, speeding through a relatively flat final half mile at a pace Davis and Walker couldn't handle.
"This course is really deceptive and you're going to get your butt kicked if you go out too fast," Karabinus said. "That's been my flaw in past years, but today I felt good almost the entire time."
McCullen also said he felt good on the final uphill climb, but Pelliccioni had already established a five-second lead over the chase pack that included McCullen. The Oakton senior managed to pull away from the runners around him over the final portion of the race but couldn't make up any ground on the leader. He finished in 15:53, four seconds behind Pelliccioni.
"Once I got to the top I just started pushing from there," McCullen said. "I just couldn't get him."
No one could get Karabinus. After a down 2008 season, Karabinus ran 30 seconds faster Saturday than her previous best time at Oatlands and finished 17 seconds ahead of Davis, the runner-up.
While she didn't know the course would be smiling at her when she felt most vulnerable, Karabinus was confident she would respond well. Before the meet, she and her teammates wrote "It's the climb" on their calf muscles.
"My junior year, confidence-wise, I just wasn't there," Karabinus said. "As I've gotten older I've learned how much confidence really does help with running."
Unfortunate Injury: Mountain View senior Kristi Lyman fell and broke her right leg at the start of the race. She was taken to Nova Urgent Care in Ashburn for surgery. On The Rise: In addition to winning the Varsity A race, the girls from Osbourn Park took second to Jefferson in the B race.
