Festival of Champions attracts local runners
BELFAST — A muddy course greeted the nearly 1,100 runners competing at Saturday’s Maine Cross Country Festival of Champions.
Highlighting the event was the seventh-place performance in the girls’ race turned in by Washburn sophomore Carsyn Koch. Out of 463 runners, the defending Class C champion finished the five-kilometer event in 19:59.66.
Teammate Carmen Bragg also had a strong performance. She was 53rd in 22:13.22.
For Presque Isle, Shelby Condon led the way by placing 179th in 24:17.34. Amanda Bennett came in 222nd in 25:00.91.
In the team results, Washburn placed 25th out of 40 teams with 667 points and PI was 33rd with 911 points.
Mount Desert Island was the winning team with 104 points. Camden Hills (169), Falmouth (221) and Brunswick (230) rounded out the top four.
In the boys’ race, Matt Eager of the Wildcats placed 19th out of 641 runners in 17:42.63. PI’s Saul Nunez was 151st in 19:27.02, Matt Tilley 160th in 19:30.54 and Trevor Levesque 237th in 20:08.31.
Noah Rossignol was 46th among freshmen. His time was 20:43.67.
Presque Isle placed 28th out of 50 teams. The Wildcats’ point total was 745.
Falmouth won with 136, followed by J.H. Gillis of Nova Scotia with 159, Cumberland with 176 and Scarborough with 184.
Nick Bragg came in 251st place and was Washburn’s top finisher with a time of 20:12.53. Michael Ericson of the Beavers placed 81st in the freshmen race.
The Festival of Champions is billed as the largest high school cross country running event in the state.
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.
