Battlefield sweeps Cedar Run track meet
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By BEN TRITTIPOE
For the News & Messenger
Published: May 14, 2008
All the hard work his Bobcats had put in during the season had finally paid off as Battlefield swept the boys and girls titles on its home track in Haymarket.
The Battlefield girls took a big lead early on Wednesday before holding off a strong surge by six-time de-fending champion Osbourn Park and scoring a 166-146 victory over the Yellow Jackets. On the boys side, the Bobcats built on a 12-point lead from Tuesday’s field events to outdistance runner-up Loudoun Valley, 156-131.
“It’s been a slow progression,” Mobley said of his girls team, who trailed OP by 40 points at last year’s dis-trict meet. “We’ve been able to whittle away at them each season, getting closer and closer, and finally it was our turn.”
Osbourn Park was competing without two of its top athletes as high jumper Maryellen Derenda and dis-tance runner Ariel Karabinus were out with injuries. The Yellow Jackets entered Wednesday’s events in fourth place and was still there, trailing Battlefield by 32 points with six events to go.
Rallying behind the Hyter sisters, Brittany and Bethany, Osbourn Park made a valiant run to close the gap. Bethany won both the 400 meters (57.64 seconds) and 200 meters (25.01) while Brittany took the 300-meter in-termediate hurdles (43.70) to pull the Yellow Jackets within seven points with two events remaining.
“We battled with the troops we had tonight and made a run,” Osbourn Park head coach Mike Feldman said. “The kids stepped up, but we might have been one bullet short.”
The second-to-last event of the night was the 3,200 meters, and Mobley felt good about the race with Eliza-beth Walls and Diana Budreika leading the Bobcats.
“I told the girls we had to have a 10-point lead on OP coming out of the 3,200 in order to win,” Mobley said. “This event meant the meet for us.
“But [Walls and Budreika] are our two best, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
Without Karabinus to counter Battlefield’s 1-2 punch, it became no contest. Walls finished second in 11 minutes, 31.54 seconds and Budreika was third in 11:39.14 to give the Bobcats the points they needed to clinch the district title.
“I give all the credit to Battlefield,” Feldman said. “They are deep, talented and well-coached on both sides. It’s a friendly rivalry with us, and they got us today. The injuries and the season finally caught up to us.”
Battlefield’s boys cruised to victory behind the success of its distance runners, with Eric Hoepker winning the 800 meters (1:56.83) along with second-place finishes from Gary Martin (4:33.33) in the 1,600 meters and from Alex Strittmatter (9:52.64) in the 3,200 meters.
“[Tuesday’s] results set up the win today,” Mobley said. “We knew our distance runners were our strength, and they scored a lot of points for us. But our sprinters were a pleasant surprise. They stepped up tonight to give us some extra points and made the difference in our margin of victory. It was a tremendous overall ef-fort.”
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