OLD TOWN, Maine – The Greater Houlton boys and girls cross country teams delivered outstanding performances at the prestigious Sectional Invitational held at Old Town High School, one of the oldest continuous high school sporting events in the state, on Saturday, September 28. With Old Town’s recent infrastructure upgrades slightly altering the classic 5K course, runners faced a new challenge but stayed true to the tradition of this historic race.
The Greater Houlton girls team made an impressive showing, earning the runner-up position out of eight teams behind a dominant 1-2 finish by Teanne Ewings and Natalie Johnson. Next for the pack was Katie McQuarrie, who crossed the line in 22nd place, followed closely by Dalayna Mincey in 25th and Kylah Tuttle in 38th. Amelia Drake completed the varsity scoring with a solid 39th place finish.
In the JV race, Greater Houlton’s Dalylah Mincey turned in a strong performance, securing a top 10 finish by placing 10th overall.
On the boys side, the varsity team earned a 4th place finish out of 11 scoring teams. Leading the charge was James Brady, who powered his way to a 5th place finish, continuing his standout season. Sophomore Brayden Drake followed closely behind, claiming 8th place with a strong performance. Malachi Witmer ran a solid race, securing 14th place, while freshman Nathan Brady impressed with his 17th-place finish. Rounding out the scoring for the Shires were Neal McQuarrie in 79th and Jackson Adams in 82nd.
“We’re incredibly proud of our athletes,” said Coach Rines. “Slight modifications to the course and some wet weather leading up to today added some uncertainty, but our runners met the challenge head-on and achieved some of the best times of their careers.”
Full results can be found at https://me.milesplit.com/meets/634172-sectionals-2024/results.
A few high quality pictures from the day can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OFjbFXCz_ER9HO-rAVvoZ2NmT-JnvaU9?usp=drive_link.
A full facebook album is also available here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.553126017255693&type=3.
Our athletes are now looking ahead to our next race, the annual Festival of Champions meet in Belfast as they aim to carry this momentum into the final stretch of the season. The Festival is one of the largest high school gatherings in the northeast US, featuring 65 Maine teams and up to 10 out of state teams including from New England, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. This will be on Saturday, October 5.
We’d also like to take this opportunity to mention two upcoming high school home races coming up and hope you’ll consider coming out to cheer on our athletes. The first, our annual Border Bash home meet featuring teams from the Aroostook League, Large School Penobscot Valley Conference and Western New Brunswick will take place on October 12. The second race is the Penobscot Valley Conference Large and Small School Championships on Saturday, October 19. Both meets start and finish in Houlton’s Community Park near the fair exhibit halls.
Our middle school program will be competing in their final meet of the season here at home on Wednesday, October 2 as they host the Aroostook County championships. The race is scheduled for 4 p.m. and we hope you can make it out to cheer on our athletes as they wrap up their season.
