ORONO, Maine — The Houlton/GHCA cross country program made the trip south Saturday, Oct. 11 to compete at the annual Red Riot Challenge hosted by Orono High School. The meet brought together a majority of the Northern Maine Class C schools, offering a valuable preview of the upcoming PVC Small School and Northern Maine regional championships.
The 4-kilometer course wound around the athletic complex for the first kilometer and a half before runners entered the wooded back section to finish the loop. Conditions were near ideal – cool, sunny and breezy; a welcome change from the heat at the previous week’s Festival of Champions. A total of 18 programs were represented at the meet.
On the girls side, Houlton/GHCA did not field a full scoring team but still produced several strong performances. Andrea Ross led the way in the varsity race, claiming 3rd overall with a time of 16:21.32. In the JV race, teammates April Mazur (19:27.89, 2nd), Kylah Tuttle (21:39.16, 5th), Dalylah Mincey (22:06.87, 6th) and Sandra Quinlan (33:02.40, 14th) all turned in solid efforts, with several showing paces that would project to personal bests over a full 5k distance.
The boys team continued their hot streak, notching another team victory and doing so in convincing fashion. All six Shires finished in the top 10, securing a team low of 21 points to win the meet. Malachi Witmer captured the individual title with a time of 13:36.14, followed by James Brady (14:06.33, 5th), Nathan Brady (14:07.17, 6th), Wyatt Quint (14:11.28, 7th), Brayden Drake (14:14.86, 9th) and Logan Witmer (14:16.93, 10th).
The Red Riot Challenge also served as the final regular-season meet for most programs, and Orono’s gesture of recognizing senior athletes from all attending schools was warmly received. Our program would like to extend a big thank you to coach White, AD Archer and the Orono XC community.
Houlton/GHCA will return to the Bangor area the next weekend for the Penobscot Valley Conference championships, held at Saxl Park and hosted by John Bapst Memorial High School on Saturday, Oct. 18.
Full results from the Red Riot Challenge are available at https://me.milesplit.com/meets/705240-red-riot-challenge-invitational-2025/results.
