Dominion High cross country coach, Brian Schmidt, was anxious to see how his boys’ and girls’ varsity teams would fare at the renowned Oatlands Invitational event, held Sept. 20, in Leesburg. His teams, like many others, were not able to compete at the annual Great Meadows Invitational earlier this fall because of poor weather. The huge, early season meet was not rescheduled.
But poor weather was not a problem at the Oatland’s showcase. Clear skies and good running temperatures helped the day’s eight races — four junior varisty, four varsity — go off without any hang-ups. Schmidt was pleased with the way his squad’s fared in their first big race of the season.
"Overall, they ran well," he said.
The Dominion boys were 13th overall among 48 teams in the elite varsity ‘A’ race. The Titans were led by sophomore J.T. Duke, who was 29th overall. Teammate Nick Phillips, a senior, was the second Dominion runner to cross the finish line and 49th overall.
The number three through five team finishers for the Titans were senior Jimmy Rion, junior Nick Sharp and senior Steven Ochocki.
Phillips, a team captain and Dominion’s No. 1 runner on the team’s ladder this season, had a problem with a shoe that came untied during the Oatlands race. Ultimately, he took it off at about the two-mile mark before finishing the race wearing just one shoe.
"The shoe came untied and he finally took it off," Schmidt said of Phillips’ bad break. "That kind of affected his time."
Duke, meanwhile, was certainly impressive at Oatlands in being his team’s best finisher. The coach called Duke, Dominion’s No. 2 runner this season, a pure cross country guy.
"He’s just a more natural cross country runner," said Schmidt, of the 10th-grader. "Some are more track runners. He has more of a [cross country] stride."
Oatlands is not an easy run, by any stretch, according to Schmidt.
"It’s like an old-school cross country course," he said. "There are a couple creek crossings. It’s not overly hilly, but it’s challenging. Some of the flat areas [allow you to] get your stride going again."
<b>FOR THE DOMINION GIRLS</b>, sophomore Barbara Rion led the Titans with a 38th overall finish in a field of 300-plus runners at Oatlands in the varsity girls’ ‘B’ race. The next finisher for Dominion was junior Buffy Misanin (71st).
"Both ran well in the ‘B’ race," Schmidt said.
Buffy is the younger sister of Becky Misanin, a 2007 Dominion graduate and one of the Dulles District’s better runners last year.
The Dominion girls’ team captains this season are seniors Cary Reyes and Lauren Bucher.
Schmidt said his team had competed on the Oatlands course a few weeks earlier in a tri-meet. That small race helped the Dominion boys and girls runners gear up for the invitational a week and a half later.
"The kids wanted to get back there and improve," Schmidt said of one of the motivators to compete at the big invitational.