‘Team first’ attitude carries Vikes to XC title

    BELFAST – There was a major question looming for the Caribou boys cross country team entering the 2009 season.
    Who would replace graduates Jesse Stephens and Steven Melbourne, who were top-10 runners in last year’s EM championship meet?

Staff photo/Kevin Sjoberg
    Finn Bondeson, left, Timothy Freme, center, and D.J. Flynn stay close together during the early stages of Saturday’s Eastern Maine Class B cross country championships held in Belfast. The Caribou Vikings were able to edge past Ellsworth to win the title and will next compete in the state championship meet, to be held in Cumberland Saturday afternoon.

    One possibility turned out to be junior D.J. Flynn, a former soccer player who decided to give cross country running a try at the beginning of the summer. The other part of the equation was Jacob Michaud, another junior who ran No. 6 on last year’s team and whose continued improvement was crucial to the success of the team.
    Combined with returning veterans, seniors Finn Bondeson and Timothy Freme and junior Christian Sleeper, the Vikings certainly felt they had the potential to match last year’s performance, which included Penobscot Valley Conference and Eastern Maine championships.
    On Saturday on the Troy Howard Middle School five-kilometer course, all the elements came together and produced the Vikings’ fourth Eastern Maine title in coach Roy Alden’s 17-year coaching career. It wasn’t easy, as Caribou’s 73 points were just three less than chief rival Ellsworth and 18 fewer than Hampden Academy, who moved to the Class B ranks from A just this year.
    The Vikes’ lead pack of Bondeson, Flynn, Freme and Sleeper had been stellar all season, and the quartet rose to the occasion again at the regionals. Just six placement slots and 20.29 seconds separated the four talented runners, with Sleeper finishing ninth in 17:25.07, Freme 11th in 17:36.03, Bondeson 12th in 17:42.43 and Flynn 14th in 17:45.36.
    “We’re so competitive that when we get with each other, we don’t want to leave each other,” Bondeson said. “We just kind of pack up and go.”
    “It’s not all about place. We all want to beat each other, but the most important thing is finishing as close together as we can,” Freme added.
    The addition of Flynn proved huge. Torn between soccer, the sport he had been playing, and cross country, Flynn opted to try something new and now has no regrets.
    “I think cross country definitely played to my strengths better,” he said. “We ran together and got used to each other throughout the summer, so we progressed at the same rate. All the hard work paid off.”
    Sleeper said he and his mates tried to recruit Flynn for last year’s team, and although it didn’t work out, he said it was nice to have Flynn on board this time around. “We couldn’t have done it without him,” Sleeper said.
    Michaud, who finished 27th in 18:31.27, has added experience as the team’s fifth runner, as he was in that position for much of last season when Stephens missed a major portion with an injury. He acknowledges that it is an important role to be in, and that Alden and his teammates have always been very encouraging.
    “It’s my job to bring up the back and there is some pressure keeping the points close with other teams,” Michaud said, “but coach has been great about keeping me relaxed.”
    Alden said he simply asked Michaud to go out and “be the best No. 5 runner in Eastern Maine.”
    “He has handled the pressure well,” the coach added. “He finished a few slots higher than we pegged him to.”
    Junior Robbie Kiehn was 44th (19:17.88) and Jesse Sandstrom 73rd (20:50.04) for Caribou out of the 100 competitors.
    The Vikings’ two seniors said it’s been fun being part of a sport that has both individual and team aspects, and agree that Alden is outstanding in stressing the latter.
    “Sometimes at the beginning of the season, some of the kids – especially the freshmen and newcomers – don’t understand,” Freme said. “But then it doesn’t take them long to understand the concept.”
    “His whole philosophy is team, and I think that is a brilliant thing,” Bondeson said, “not just for cross country, but for life. You always have to stick together and stick it out with each other, and you’ll go far.”
    Sam Seekins of Erskine Academy in South China was the meet champion with a time of 16:30.72. He beat out John Bapst’s Gabe Stewart by approximately eight seconds.
    The Caribou girls were unable to qualify as a team for the state meet, but one runner did earn a berth in this Saturday’s competition. By finishing 20th, junior Dayna Michaud captured the last slot in qualifying to run at Twin Brook in Cumberland. Only the top 20 individuals in the Class B race earned the right to compete in the state meet. Michaud’s time was 21:36.82.
    Other Vikings taking part in the regionals were junior Mary Jo Sheehan (22nd, 21:39.23), sophomore Katie Plourde (35th, 22:23.24), freshman Kendra Stephens (46th, 22:51), sophomore Kelly Kashian (52nd, 23:01.55) and junior Laura Collins (57th, 23:25.72).
    With only the top seven teams marching on to the state event, Caribou just missed out with 159 points – five behind seventh-place Hampden Academy and nine behind sixth-place Winslow.
    John Bapst took the team title with 53 points, followed by MDI (84) and Ellsworth (125). Dacie Manion of Old Town beat out PI’s Alecia Palmer by four seconds for the individual title.

Staff photo/Kevin Sjoberg
    Dayna Michaud, left, of the Caribou Vikings bears down during the EM cross country championship meet held in Belfast Saturday. Michaud ended up 20th and qualified for this weekend’s state meet. Behind her is teammate Mary Jo Sheehan, who placed 22nd.

    Joining Michaud as local individual qualifiers for this weekend’s state meet are Limestone-MSSM runners Lucy Wilcox and Pat Brown, who will run in the Class C competition. Wilcox placed 10th out of 54 in the girls’ regional in 23:35.67, while Brown was fourth out of 86 in the boys’ race in 18:24.73.
    “My goal was to finish in the top 10 and I was happy with my time,” said Wilcox, a magnet school student and the lone Limestone-MSSM girl to compete. “I’m used to having a few more hills, but I liked the course.”
    Brown, another magnet school student who hails from Lisbon Falls, had loftier goals, even gunning for the overall title, but was still pleased to attain a top-five placement. “I think with my best time, I could have finished close to first,” Brown said. “Today was actually one of my worst times.”
    He said his job as an resident assistant in the MSSM dorm made the race a challenge. “I got up at 5 o’clock to come down here, and I was up until 12:30 in the morning because of my job, so I was a little out of it.”
    Noah Entwistle (55th) and Justin Thompson (78th) were other Eagles who competed.

Staff photo/Kevin Sjoberg
    Caribou got a nice performance from Jake Michaud, left, during Saturday’s Eastern Maine XC championship meet in Belfast. He placed 27th and helped lift the Vikings to first place.

Staff photo/Kevin Sjoberg
    Lucy Wilcox stays ahead of a large pack of runners during the first mile of Saturday’s Class C meet. The Limestone-MSSM runner finished 10th in the race.

Staff photo/Kevin Sjoberg
    Pat Brown of Limestone-MSSM tries to chase down a Calais runner en route to his fourth-place finish in Saturday’s Class C EM  championship event.

Staff photo/Kevin Sjoberg
    Jesse Sandstrom, left, stays ahead of Hermon’s Ryan Botting and Presque Isle’s Joel Shay in Saturday’s cross country meet in Belfast, with the Eastern Maine Class B title up for grabs. Caribou won the meet and will compete in the state championship Saturday in Cumberland.