By Kevin Sjoberg
Sports Reporter
BELFAST — A muddy course greeted the nearly 1,100 runners competing at Saturday’s Maine Cross Country Festival of Champions.
When the final results were tabulated, the Caribou boys ended up seventh out of 50 teams and the Caribou girls 12th out of 40 in the largest high school cross country running event in the state.
Washburn and Presque Isle were the other local teams competing.
In the boys’ race, Caleb Chapman of the Vikings was 30th overall out of 641 runners who started the race. His time on the five-kilometer course was 17 minutes and 54.53 seconds.
“Caleb ran with confidence and showed a lot of courage staying with the leaders through the middle of the race and then had a great finish to pick up four or five spots,” said Caribou coach Roy Alden.
Teammate Jesse Sandstrom was 55th in 18:17.86 and had what Alden called his “breakthrough performance of the season.”
Lucas Kinney and Ryan Washington, also of Caribou, were 76th and 80th , respectively. Kinney’s time was 18:44.54 and Washington’s was 18:48.97. Ron Lund was the team’s other scorer, coming in 96th in 18:58.42.
Caribou scored 337 points. Falmouth won with 136, followed by J.H. Gillis of Nova Scotia with 159, Cumberland with 176 and Scarborough with 184.
“The boys worked extremely hard in very tough conditions,” Alden said. “Considering we did not all run our best, we were still fourth out of the Maine teams.”
Nick Bragg came in 251st place and was Washburn’s top finisher with a time of 20:12.53.
Brendan Cyr of the Vikes was 47th among freshmen and Michael Ericson of Washburn was 81st.
The Caribou girls scored 390 points on the day and were led by junior Mackenzie Belyea, who was 17th overall out of 463. She crossed the finish line in 20:59.64.
“She went into the race ready to run and it showed as this is her first time placing in the top 20,” said Belyea’s coach, Thomas Beckum.
Also for the Vikings, Natasha Bishop was 96th in 22:55.55, Kelly Kashian 98th in 22:56.53, Renee Dube 103rd in 23:04.1 and Katelynn Plourde 108th in 23:09.83.
Bishop was second in the unseeded race, which featured 249 competitors, while Dube was fourth and Katherine Page, also of Caribou, seventh.
The Vikings’ Nerissa Larrabee was 26th and twin sister Robyn was 28th among freshmen.
Mount Desert Island was the winning team with 104 points. Camden Hills (169), Falmouth (221) and Brunswick (230) rounded out the top four.
Grabbing the No. 7 position overall was Washburn runner Carsyn Koch. The defending state champion recorded a time of 19:59.66.
Carmen Bragg of the Beavers was 53rd in 22:13.22.
The Aroostook League all-star race will be held Friday in Limestone beginning at 3:30 p.m. Caribou will host the Penobscot Valley Conference championship Oct. 15.
