Sister Act

By Robert Daski

Published: May 24, 2008

Telling twin sisters Bethany and Brittany Hyter apart takes time.
“It took me half a year,” friend and teammate Peyton Alston said.
“It took me two and a half years,” Osbourn Park track and field coach Mike Feldman said.
The mole on Bethany’s nose is one way to tell who is who. Another way is listening to them talk. Brittany has a deeper voice.
But regardless of the differences, one thing is clear: Bethany and Brittany have shared in the contributions to the school’s track and field team since 2005.
Numerous athletes have helped the Yellow Jackets continue as a premier Cedar Run District program. Osbourn Park has won three straight Cedar Run indoor titles and had won two straight outdoor titles before surrendering its crown to Battlefield on May 14.
Bethany and Brittany’s individual finishes — Bethany in the 200, 400 and 500-meter dash, long jump and triple jump and Brittany in the long jump and hurdles — and 800-relay and 1,600-relay marks have elevated OP to two consecutive Northwest Region indoor titles and three consecutive outdoor titles.
“They have set a standard of excellence that has been unparalleled in our school’s history,” Os-bourn Park track coach Mike Feldman said.
Brittany, older by one hour, is a power runner. She becomes aggressive midway through run-ning her different hurdles races.
Bethany takes a calmer approach. She hits her stride when trailing her competition and passes runners later in her races. She passed an opposing runner on the anchor leg of the 1,600-relay at the 2007 indoor Group AAA state meet to give Osbourn Park a state title. She passed another runner en route to winning the 500 at the 2008 indoor state meet.
“The motivation is I run for the team, not just for myself,” Bethany said. “I don’t want to keep my position.”
Bethany has always been determined to lead and her ambition has not gone unnoticed. As a freshman, she volunteered to be the lead runner during workouts, but was told by the senior team-mates to run at the rear of packs and not attempt to pass.
Frustrated, she approached Osbourn Park assistant track and field coach Charles Edwards and asked to lead.
Edwards granted her request and made her do so for every workout.
“I said Bethany can lead all the time and you all can keep up with her because Bethany, even as a freshman, was a phenomenal athlete,” said Edwards, a former Gar-Field track standout. “She al-ways pushed herself.”
Bethany and Brittany are so established that Edwards has them work out with Osbourn Park’s male runners. Brittany will race OP junior Paul DeVito, the fourth place 55-meter hurdles finisher at the ’08 indoor state meet, in hurdles workouts and go all-out to try and beat him.
“Brittany’s very competitive when it comes to the hurdles,” Edwards said. “She wants to lead because she doesn’t want Paul to catch her.”
But Bethany has one thing Brittany does not: an individual state title, which the former won in the 500-meter dash at the 2008 indoor Group AAA meet.
So Brittany will try to claim her own championship at this weekend’s Group AAA outdoor state meet.
“I definitely want to be a state champion,” Brittany said.
The twins are competitive with each other, playing video games that deal with running.
“The majority of times, I win,” Bethany said.
But their bond is so tight that rarely does one do something or go somewhere without the other.
As seventh graders at Lake Ridge Middle School, Bethany began participating in track and field and persuaded Brittany to do the same.
They go shopping together.
They plan to attend the University of Nebraska. Both have agreed verbally to do so, but have yet to sign letters-of-intent.
Both will major in forensics.
They are so inseparable that if they are taken away from each other, they find a way to stay con-nected. During a trip to the Penn Relays, they were put in separate vans. But they stayed in contact via text messaging during the three-hour journey.
“They hate being away from each other,” Edwards said. “They’re one unit.”