WBA’s Sosa doesn’t let vision impairment stop her from joining cross country team

KINGSTON — Mariely Sosa began running on the safety of a smooth surface and in shorter races as a member of the Wilkes-Barre Area Unified track and field team as a sophomore.

Despite the challenges that are part of competing with a significant vision impairment, Sosa has expanded her running from there.

“I did Unified track sophomore year,” Sosa said. “I never did any sports before that because of my eye condition.”

After running and long jumping in Unified track, Sosa was encouraged to try cross country by a member of the school’s boys team.

Sosa ran last year, the first time any girls competed in the sport since the merger created Wilkes-Barre Area from Coughlin, GAR and Meyers. She is back for her senior year with the Wolfpack expecting to take another step and have the five runners necessary to score in large meets for the first time.

“It was hard at first,” said Sosa, who runs the uneven surfaces of a cross country course with a teammate often by her side. “After I got used to it and people started pushing me more, I started liking it.”

Even with assistance, Sosa has had her missteps.

“I have a lot of concerns at times,” she said. “How my vision works is it’s like a tunnel, I don’t really have any depth perception, so sometimes I have fallen in a hole or really on any uneven area. But, I get back up and I keep running.”

Sosa was born with Leber’s congenital amaurosis (LCA), which the National Institute of Health’s website describes as “one of the most severe inherited retinal dystrophies, typically associated with extremely early onset of visual loss” and states is responsible for 20 percent of all childhood blindness.

“It’s kind of like cataracts and another condition together and light affects a lot of it,” Sosa said. “I can’t see far; I can’t see near; and every part of lighting affects it.”

Changes in light from heading into a wooded section of a course or re-emerging into bright sunlight cause the greatest challenges.

After her first cross country season last fall, Sosa switched in the spring from the school’s Unified team — a Special Olympics program that combines students with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities as teammates, to the Wolfpack varsity track team.

Sosa, an honors student, is active at the school as a member of Future Business Leaders of America and the Diversity Club. And, she has become a leader in the growth of the girls cross country team.

“Last year, we had two runners for the first time,” veteran Wilkes-Barre Area track and field and cross country coach Paul McGrane said at last week’s Wyoming Valley Conference cross country media night. “This year, we had 13 sign up and we’ve been having six or seven showing up at the early practices.

“A lot of them are from the track team last year,” said McGrane, who credits junior high coach Anthony Dates for helping bring in more runners. “They liked the camaraderie they got from last year’s track program even though they didn’t really win a lot of meets.

“They’re young; they just want to try it out; and they’re having fun right now. So, I’m having fun with them.”