The girls varsity A cross country team placed first at the Oatlands Invitational in Leesburg, Virginia on Saturday.
Led by senior Samantha King (9th overall) and junior Olivia Woods (17th), the team finished with a cumulative score of 190. Senior Erin O’Connor (45th), freshman Julia Johnson (51th) and junior Lena Feldman (68th) rounded out the Vikings’ top five times.
King cited pacing as one of the reasons she was able to place in the top ten.
“I knew that I shouldn’t go too fast in the first mile or I would burn out later,” she said. “I started out in 44th place and slowly made my way to the top pack.”
Woods implemented the same strategy of that gradually speeding up over the course of the race, which she says helped her to a top-20 finish.
“I took the first mile out easy and then started to pass people as mile two progressed,” she said. “As the second mile ended, I knew it was time to kick it up a notch and give it all I had.”
Oatlands, one of the first major meets of the season, drew 343 runners from top teams around Maryland, D.C. and Virginia.
“It’s always nice to win a race, especially one of this size, so we’re pretty excited,” coach Stephen Hays said in an interview with MileStat.com. “But it’s the first part of the season and we want to be good at the end of the season, so we’re going to keep trying to get better.”
On the boys side, senior Ben Gersch placed 22nd overall out of 400 runners, but the team finished 40th.
