Maryland State XC Championships 2010 Linde stuns Oneda, crowd with late surge

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Linde stuns Oneda, crowd with late surge
Senior’s third straight state title leads Knights to team win

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By Kevin Spradlin
TriStateRunnur.com

PARKTON, Md., Nov. 13 – Century senior Maure Linde has proven herself a very good runner over the past four years of running in Carroll County and across the state of Maryland.

This year, though, Winters Mill junior Hannah Oneda has proven to be better – on multiple occasions. So it was no surprise that Oneda, who on the county and Class 2A West Region championships this fall – both over runner-up Linde – started out the state meet with a single goal: beat Linde.

Because beating Linde meant beating the field. It meant breaking the Century senior’s run of two consecutive cross country state titles. It meant the first individual cross country state title in school history for Winters Mill.

And for the first 14,856 feet on Saturday, it looked as if Oneda would break that streak and win a title of her own. But the course, such as it was, measures in at 15,840 feet. And Linde used every one of them.

Maura Linde Hannah Oneda Hailey Spinapont Nicole Rutherford

At the 1-mile mark, Oneda led Linde by a single second. A mile later, Oneda had put another five seconds between herself and her green-and-gold clad opponent.

Oneda surged. Linde tried to hang on. Linde trailed by several strides after the second ascent up the infamous dip on the Hereford High School cross country course and still trailed as the pair made their way across the short ridge and towards an isolated area behind the athletic fields.

And then something very unfunny happened on the runners’ way around the backstop. Oneda, in tennis terms, double faulted. Linde surged one more time – and, at least for one afternoon, silenced her critics.

“I know I haven’t had the best of seasons,” said Linde, who has battled minor injuries throughout the fall campaign while involved in a back-and-forth battle with Oneda. “I just erased all the pressure. I just wanted to run the best race I could.”

And she did – in a very smart way. Whether by design or by happenstance, Linde let Oneda do all the work. The pressure was on the frontrunner Oneda, not the two-time defending champion Linde, to maintain both course and speed. It almost worked.

“I was trying to hold back for the first two (miles) and then surge on the last one,” said Oneda, who set a personal best time of 19:32, 22 seconds behind Linde’s 19:10 winner.

When Linde passed behind the backstop, “I tried to respond,” Oneda said. “I surged a little bit.”

But Linde surged a lot.

“I just didn’t do it this time,” Oneda said.

Linde credited a team bonding experience the night before the race for helping to ease the tension heading into her final cross country state meet.

“I’m used to pressure,” Linde said. “I try to handle the pressure (as best) I can (but) it was definitely a little bit harder this year.”

After the team event Friday, “I just erased all the pressure,” Linde said. “I just try to remember why I did this – running, racing’s fun.”

Robby Creese Nick Pezza Stephen Keith Austin McGinley