The Oxbow High girls cross country team overcame a rash of illnesses, personal issues and even state-meet scoring errors before securing its second straight Vermont Division III championship.
Fully healthy and available for the first time all season at the state meet at Thetford Academy on Nov. 5, posted results first named Rice Memorial as the champ. However, scorers had mistakenly credited the top five runners for each team — in D-III, only the top four at States are scored.
Once reconfigured, the Olympians had edged the Green Knights, 28-32, led by junior Izzy Giesing’s fourth-place time of 21 minutes, 1.8 seconds.
South Burlington-based Rice had beaten Oxbow by five points earlier in the season at the Harwood Invitational, but several Olympians were battling the common cold, while junior Emily Carson was still recovering from a bout with anemia as a result of iron deficiency, according to coach Katherine Chobanian.
Throughout the season, the O’s had focused efforts on peaking in time for the state race. That’s precisely what happened, as senior Leanne Burgess (eighth; 21:58.3), Hannah Giesing (10th; 22:19.5) and Carson (15th; 23:00.9) all earned top-15 placements.
“It was basically a perfect storm of things that came together for us at the right time,” said Chobanian, a former runner at Andover (Mass.) High and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “It was a little touch-and-go for us throughout the year. We had people miss some meets because of various conflicts, Emily had anemia and a lot of our athletes kept getting the common cold. We knew we had a chance at States, but that it was going to be close. It was close, but it worked out in our favor.”
Oxbow didn’t have enough athletes for a team score at the season-opening Burlington Invitational and were also shorthanded or limited for meets at North Country, U-32 and Stowe in September.
Things started to shift late in the month at the Manchester Invitational, where the O’s were 14th of 28 teams from across New England while six Olympians ran season- or career-best times.
Oxbow fell to Mountain Division rival Montpelier on a challenging Lyndon State College course the following week, then placed 31st of 48 teams the following week at Thetford’s Woods Trail Run. That was four places behind the host Panthers, a D-III rival, as several Olympian runners had off days.
“That definitely put Thetford on our radar as a challenger in Division III,” Chobanian said. “They showed they could beat us if we weren’t on top of our game.”
The Olympians later placed third at the Harwood Invite, but were honored as co-ed meet champions for the second straight year when their score was combined with that of Oxbow’s boys team.
The O’s girls still weren’t 100 percent healthy at the Mountain Division championship meet at Lamoille on Oct. 22, placing third, but had two weeks to fully recover in time for an exhilarating performance at States.
“Last year, there was a lot of excitement because it was the program’s very first title,” Chobanian said. “This year, I think, was a little more satisfying because of all the challenges we faced. We were neck-and-neck with Rice and Thetford (third at States) was right in the mix, but our top four runners were just faster.”
Chobanian nearly didn’t coach this season after giving birth to her first child, daughter Ava, in May. She was still on maternity leave from her job as a counselor at Oxbow when the season began.
Ava was present at nearly every practice and meet, and Olympian runners named her their unofficial mascot and good-luck charm.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be in the right head space to coach, and I knew I couldn’t do it on my own,” Chobanian said. “(First-year assistant coach) Vicky Carson really made it so it was possible that I stayed on.”
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3225.