Sports Reporter
CUMBERLAND – It wasn’t quite the result they were looking for, but the Caribou boys cross country team still got some great individual performances Saturday and capped off the season with a fifth-place finish in the Class B state championship meet.
Staff photo/Kevin Sjoberg
Christian Sleeper of the Caribou Vikings stays in front of a large pack of runners during the Oct. 31 regional meet in Belfast. Sleeper placed 11th in Saturday’s Class B state championship in Cumberland.
The event, which was held at Twin Brook Recreation Center, saw Caribou have four of its runners cross the finish line in the overall top 20.
No other team competing was able to make that claim, but the overall depth of Western Maine teams Greely, York, Falmouth and Cape Elizabeth ultimately made the difference.
Caribou finished behind those four teams, but ahead of nine other squads. After winning the previous weekend’s Eastern Maine championship meet, the Vikes were again the top team from the region in Saturday’s competition.
Christian Sleeper was Caribou’s fastest runner on the day and was 11th overall in 17:23. Timothy Freme took 15th place in 17:28, while Finn Bondeson was 18th in 17:40 and D.J. Flynn 19th in 17:42.
“It was great to see Christian running with the top 10 the entire race, and Tim, Finn and D.J. just a few places back,” said Caribou coach Roy Alden. “We races extremely well against the best competition in the state. The boys were extremely focused the entire race, and to have four athletes in the top 20 is a tremendous accomplishment.”
Jake Michaud (71st), Robbie Kiehn (75th) and Jesse Sandstrom (82nd) were Caribou’s other competitors.
Alex Moser of York won the individual title in 16:14.
Caribou’s Dayna Michaud was her school’s lone qualifier in the girls meet, and she turned in a 23rd-place finish in 21:43. Cape Elizabeth was the team champion on the girls side and Abby Mace of Maranacook won the individual title in 18:48.
In Class C, Limestone-MSSM athletes Pat Brown and Lucy Wilcox competed. Brown was 34th in the boys race in 18:58 and Wilcox was 45th in the girls race in 24:56.
