Hampden girls find cross country a true team effort

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HAMPDEN – There’s something special about the sport of cross country, girls team members at Hampden Academy will tell you. There’s also something special about the team they’ve been running on this year.

It’s not just that the Eastern Maine champions and Penobscot Valley Conference champions have been dominating the Eastern Maine cross country scene, leaving a trail of competitors in a wake of purple and white.

After all, runners at Hampden have become accustomed to success. The girls indoor and outdoor track teams won state Class B titles in 2000, and several members of this year’s cross country team belonged to those squads.

Rather, the girls said, it’s a matter of the way the sport of cross country brings them closer together as teammates and friends. And it’s the way that the memory of last year’s state championship meet – in which the Broncos finished third – has motivated them to elevate their training and race performances to a higher level.

Junior Oriana Farley, who should contend for the individual state crown Saturday after finishing third in the regional, said she enjoys cross country because it seems like more of a team sport to her than track. In track, the girls may be competing simultaneously in different events on different parts of the field and aren’t able to cheer each other on.

“[In cross country] every person counts,” she said.

Sophomore Amelia Potvin agreed.

“You get a lot of satisfaction out of working hard with your friends,” she said.

According to coach Dick Balentine, now in his 23rd year at Hampden, this year’s team has worked together like none he has had before.

That’s due in part to the small margin between his second and fifth runners. While Farley is out ahead of the pack, juniors MacKenzie Rawcliffe and Shelly Estes and sophomores Potvin and Molly Balentine are so close in ability that they usually finish races within 20 seconds of one another.

“We’ve worked a lot on them psychologically helping each other in races by running together. It’s easier to run stride for stride rather than five strides behind,” coach Balentine said.

That also means pushing each other to excel in practice. The girls usually train between 28 and 35 miles per week. They said that a 9-mile run in early October, their longest run of the year before beginning to taper for the championship season, helped them build team unity and confidence in their fitness.

“Our 9-mile run in the rain was really fun. MacKenzie made up songs and we sang them as we ran,” Potvin said.

The Broncos have been haunted by the close margin by which they missed the state runner-up honor last year. Greeley High of Cumberland captured the state title with 83 points, followed by Fryeburg Academy with 89 and Hampden with 90.

“At states last year we kind of made a vow – that we’d come back this year and try to redeem ourselves,” said Molly Balentine, who is Dick Balentine’s daughter.

That meant a renewed commitment to train during the summer. The girls often met for informal runs, and Molly Balentine, Farley and Potvin attended a running camp in Vermont.

Assistant coach Anne Norton, now in her 14th year with the Broncos, added that the team has adjusted its training to prepare for the hilly state championship course in Augusta.

“We’ve done all our speed work out in nature, not on the track,” she said.

The girls said the course-specific training has been difficult, but they know it is necessary in order to tackle what they consider to be the toughest course they will run all year.

Indeed, the Augusta course has almost every obstacle that a runner could encounter in a cross country race: sharp, steep hills; long, gradual hills; a large field prone to mud if it rains; and even a few sandy patches.

“It’s not my favorite course,” Farley said wryly.

Individually, Farley will be looking to improve on last year’s third-place finish. She was also third as a freshman.

“Last year I thought it was a reasonable goal to be state champion, but it didn’t pan out. This year [an individual title] has been in the back of my mind, though the team is the top priority,” Farley said.

Farley also hopes to better last year’s 28th-place finish at the New England cross country championship and plans to participate in the prestigious Footlocker regional qualifying race in New York City at the end of November. The top eight runners at the Footlocker regional advance to the national meet.

Dick Balentine said that he has been impressed with the commitment to the tough training that all 23 girls on his team have demonstrated. This is the largest team he has ever had at Hampden, and not a single girl has dropped out over the course of the season.

Two freshmen, Melissa Estes (Shelly Estes’ sister) and Margaret Hassell, have filled the sixth and seventh slots on the team. Five runners count in the team scoring and only seven compete in the varsity races.

Balentine added that the Broncos’ senior captains, Leah Balentine (also Balentine’s daughter) and Lani Corson, have provided exceptional leadership even though the younger runners have finished ahead of them in the races.

“On most teams in the state they would be varsity runners – their leadership skills have really helped to keep the team together,” he said.