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(Enlarge) Mt. Hebron junior Becky Yep battled injuries as a freshman and sophomore, but came back strong in her junior season. She won the regional meet and finished second at the county and state meets. (Staff photo by Matt Roth)

Mt. Hebron's Becky Yep still thinks the big picture -- the one that features her among the state's best runners -- is a little overwhelming.

The races themselves, on a one-on-one basis, are no problem. This fall, as a junior, she sandwiched second-place finishes at the county championship and state meet around her first-ever regional title.

It's the other things, like getting her picture taken, getting interviewed and garnering individual accolades that she's still trying to get used to.

"When I step back, it's all still a little hard to believe I guess," said Yep, this year's Columbia Flier/Howard County Times girls cross country Runner of the Year. "When I'm racing, I'm out there to win ... I have a plan and I leave it all out there. But beyond that I try not to get too far ahead of myself.

"Before this season, my biggest goal was just to stay injury-free. Everything else was a bonus."

Yep, who had been plagued by stress fractures in both tibias during her freshman and sophomore seasons, entered this fall confident, but with tempered expectations. As a sophomore, after missing most of the regular season, she had finished third at counties and states, along with second at regionals. So the potential was there.

The only question, as coach Kami Wagner put it, was would her body cooperate?

"It was kind of the elephant in the room, where everyone is thinking about it but no one wants to say anything," Wagner said. "She was smart about everything, though, and she had a great pre-season. I think a lot of it was her listening to her body and not overextending herself like maybe she had in the past."

Things started with a fourth-place finish at the Howard County Invitational Sept. 11, but it was a tri-meet at River Hill less than a week later that Yep said really got her going.

Running by herself for most of the race, Yep ended up winning with a time of 19:55.

It was the first time she had been able to break 20 minutes competitively.

"I think that's when it started to hit me ... that this was something that I could actually do something with," she said. "There's a huge difference between being in the 19s and the 20s."

After finally breaking through, the floodgates opened. Yep won the Doc Jones Invitational (19:45), the Run from the Lions Den (20:05) and the elite race at Bull Run (19:54) before the post-season races began.

At the county meet, after leading for nearly the entire race, Yep suffered her first loss in over a month. River Hill's Katie Harman (19:10) surged down the stretch and beat her by four seconds.

"I look at every race as a learning experience, and let's just say I learned a lot from that race," Yep said.

She got a chance at redemption the following week at regionals and didn't let it go to waste. Again going out fast, this time she maintained her lead over Harman and ended up winning in 19:16.

"That was a huge race for her, because it proved that she was capable of winning a big race against runners the caliber of Katie," Wagner said.

The following week at states, Yep ended up finishing second in 19:55. She again beat Harman, but fell seven seconds short of Century's Maura Linde. The runner-up showing did however go a long way toward helping Mt. Hebron finish third in the Class 2A team competition.

This winter Yep won't be running indoor track, instead she is taking some time off to rest mentally and physically. This spring, though, she plans on competing during outdoor and will be doing so with plenty of confidence under her belt.

Named to the all-county first team are:

Elyse Borisko, Howard senior. Hampered by early season injuries which kept her from competing at the Howard County Invitational, Borisko took a little while to get going this fall.

After breaking 20 minutes in every race but one as a junior, the Lions' top runner was closer to 21 minutes when she started in tri-meets midway through September.

But a little time and hard work was all Borisko needed to get herself back toward the top.

At the Bull Run Oct. 11, she ended up finishing second in 20:09. The momentum carried with her through the post-season as she placed third or better in her final three high school races. She started with a third-place (19:44) at counties, then followed it up with a victory at regionals. And she closed things out by, for the third-straight year, finishing runner-up at states.

Katie Harman, River Hill senior. Harman was another runner not at full strength at points this fall, as she nursed a heel injury. She finished sixth at the Howard County Invitational and never went all out during tri-meets. But once the magnitude of the races increased, so did Harman's performance level. Her regular season was highlighted by a second-place effort at the William & Mary Invitational.

Her come-from-behind victory at the county championships was one of the most exciting races of the fall, as she passed Becky Yep in the final 800 meters to win in 19:10. That was also her fastest time ever on the course at Centennial.

The following week she finished second to Yep at regionals and then closed her high school season by placing third at states.

In addition to all the individual accolades, Harman served as the leader of a River Hill team that swept its way through the post-season and earned its second consecutive state title.

Olivia Joseph, Centennial sophomore. After a breakout freshman campaign, including top six finishes at counties and states, Joseph hit the ground running this fall. Aggressive and not afraid to go out with the leaders, she again improved steadily as the year went on after starting with a ninth-place showing at the Howard County Invitational. She was fifth at the South Carroll Invitational and then won the Bobcat Invitational at Jerusalem Mills with a time of 20:14.

At the county championships she was fourth and then at regionals she ran her way to second place in 20:08. She looked destined to finish her season with a top four effort at states as well, but after hanging with the leaders for the first half of the race she became sick and was forced to drop out.

Tiffany Lang, Oakland Mills freshman. A lack of high school experience didn't prevent Lang from making a big splash as a first-year runner. Running with the Howard County Junior Striders had prepared her for the competition and there appeared to be very few jitters as she ran her way to 10th at the Howard County Invitational early on. She built on that with fourth-place showings at the Knights Invitational and Run from the Lions Den, before finishing third in the small schools race at Bull Run.

At the county championships she was fifth and at regionals she improved one place to finish fourth. At her first state meet, she came in seventh with a time of 21:03.

Payton Lawrence, River Hill sophomore. On a River Hill squad stacked with depth, Lawrence consistently put herself among the team's top three and the top 10 overall, especially in the postseason. She was eighth at the Howard County Invitational to start things off, building on the confidence of earning second team all-county status as a freshman.

The learning experiences she had on the big stages of the William & Mary and Manhattan invitationals ended up leading to a seventh-place finish (20:34) at counties. She then was sixth at regionals and 12th at states, helping her team to victories along the way. While Lawrence's time at the state meet was slower than last year, it still was good enough to place her third among a Hawks' group that had six of its seven runners in the top 20.

Meredith Mill, Howard junior. Mill has been a model of consistency since she was a freshman, playing big roles in the Lions winning back-to-back state titles her first two years.

While there were no team titles for Howard this fall, Mill again showcased her abilities on the biggest stages, finishing in the top 10 in all three post-season races for the second straight year.

Like her teammate, Elyse Borisko, Mill took it easy in the early going this fall before building toward running her best at the end. At the Bull Run she was 10th in the elite race, but by the time states rolled around she was able to knock more than 40 seconds off her time to finish fourth. In the weeks before that, Mill was sixth at counties and eighth at regionals.

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