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| Contributed photo/Christiane Washington Undeterred by the muddy course, Caribou senior Mackenzie Belyea shows off her smile during Saturday’s EM championship meet. Belyea ended up in fourth place in the competition. |
By Kevin Sjoberg
Sports Reporter
BELFAST – The Caribou boys earned a runner-up plaque in Class B and the Washburn girls repeated their Class C title during a wet and muddy Eastern Maine Championship cross country meet held Saturday at the Troy Howard Middle School.
In the Class B boys’ race, Caribou came in a distant second to rival Ellsworth, scoring 127 points compared to the Eagles’ 27, but veteran coach Roy Alden was still proud of the performance.
“Ellsworth has an outstanding team, but we competed to our potential today. The team had to give everything it had,” Alden said.
The victorious Eagles featured three of the four fastest racers, but the Vikes were well represented near the top as Ron Lund placed eighth in 18:32.2 and Brendan Cyr came in 12th in 18:59.29. A total of 15 teams and 102 runners competed in the ‘B’ competition. Caribou finished just ahead of MDI (138), Winslow (141) and John Bapst (143) to gain the runner-up position.
“Ron had a strong performance,” Alden said. “Whenever you finish in the top 10 in a regional championship, you had an outstanding day.”
He also lauded the performances of Cyr and Tyler Strid (44th overall), saying both “continue to have excellent races at the most important time in the season.”
Ryan Washington (27th, 19:27.22) and Lucas Kinney (37th, 19:48.38) were the other Viking scorers in the meet.
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| John Clarke Russ/ bangordailynews.com Washburn’s Carsyn Koch cools down following her victory in the Class C regional meet held in Belfast Saturday afternoon. |
The Caribou girls also qualified as a team for the state meet. Coach Thomas Beckum’s squad came in fourth place out of 13 teams by compiling 81 points. The Vikes were behind only Camden Hills (51), Waterville (65) and MDI (78).
The overall winner was Waterville’s Bethanie Brown, whose time was 18:46.11.
Mackenzie Belyea, who sat out the previous weekend’s Penobscot Valley Conference championship meet with an injury, still was battling a lower back/hip injury but managed to come in fourth out of 92 runners in 20:55.84.
“Mackenzie had her best performance of the year, beating two of the top runners in the state that she had yet to beat this season,” Beckum said. “I was amazed on how she ran, especially considering her [health].”
The Vikes were also bolstered by twin sisters Robyn Larrabee (12th, 21:29.79) and Nerissa Larrabee (16th, 21:50.95), as well as 26th-place finisher Chelsea Bard (23:09.64) and Kristin Macek, who Beckum said had a “breakthrough race” by coming in 31st in 23:46.3.
Beckum said the team’s goal at this Saturday’s state meet is to finish among the top six and have one or two runners qualify for the New England Championships.
The Beaver girls came in first place out of seven teams in their division. Both Washburn and runner-up Orono had their five scoring runners within the top-20 out of the 63 overall competitors, but the Beavers featured three among the top five to tally a meet-low 28 points, compared to 41 for the Red Riots.
George Stevens Academy was a distant third with 109 points.
Junior Carsyn Koch of Washburn captured her third consecutive individual crown by mudding through the 3.1-mile course in 20 minutes and 57.14 seconds. Following Orono’s Lily Koffman (21:23.14) were Koch’s teammate Carmen Bragg (22:11.7), Calais’s Madison McVicar (22:14.39) and another Beaver runner, Mackenzie Worcester (22:28.51).
“Before [the races] I told my teams that it was going to be a strength race. Speed doesn’t matter under these conditions as much as staying tough and keeping a good line on the best part of the course,” said Washburn coach Mike Waugh. “I told the girls that the Eastern Maine title was theirs to defend, to stay tough, and to watch out for Orono.
“We knew coming in that they’d be gunning for us, but I knew how hard the girls had trained and that they were ready. Everyone poured their heart out,” he added.
Also making it into the top-10 was Emilia Churchill, who came in 10th in 24:03.17. Teammate Hannah Heald was 16th in 25:11.98.
Lucy Wilcox of Limestone-MSSM placed 34th in 27:30.51. She did not qualify for the state meet as only the top 30 individuals move on.
In the Class C boys’ race, Washburn was eighth out of 10 teams with 185 points, but freshman Noah Caron earned a berth in the state meet by placing 17th in 20:18.35. The top 30 runners from each class qualify.
Michael Ericson of the Beavers just missed out in qualifying, placing 36th in 22:21.79.
