OLD TOWN – With a month left in the season, Saturday’s 54th annual Sectional Cross Country Invitational marked the halfway point for the 13 schools, 25 teams, and almost 200 runners assembled at Old Town High School.

On a warm, sunny afternoon on a surprisingly dry course following Friday’s rain, the midterm grades couldn’t have been much better for Brewer’s Heather Clark, Ellsworth’s Joey Dewitt, Ellsworth’s varsity girls team, and the Mount Desert Island boys.

Clark continued a dominant senior season by notching her fourth win in four races and smashing the 3-year-old course record by running the 3.03-mile layout in 18 minutes, 45 seconds.

“I didn’t even know I broke it. I just wanted to come out and run a competitive race,” Clark said after being told she’d bested Oriana Farley’s 1999 mark by 18 seconds. “I knew I was running against Oriana and [Cassie] Hintz from Old Town and some other great runners. It’s really exciting. When I heard it was a course record, I never fathomed it.”

Hintz (18:57) was runner-up.

“I didn’t expect the time I had today with it being a little muddy,” Hintz said. “This is about how I wanted to run. I wanted to get closer to Heather Clark than I did last time and I’m kind of gaining on her.”

Dewitt wasn’t able to break fellow Ellsworth runner Louie Luchini’s blazing time of 15:28, set in 1997, but he was quite pleased with his 16:00 clocking.

“I felt pretty good about my race,” said Dewitt, who said the heat played a little havoc with his exercise-induced asthma. “At the first of it, I got boxed in and was in 20th, so I kind of played it a little stupid and sprinted to catch back up and that knocked the starch out of me at the half-mile mark. I got it back once I got up in front and started setting my pace. Once I started going downhill, I caught my breath.”

Dewitt’s win extends a unique streak as Ellsworth runners have won the boys title for eight straight years with Dewitt’s older brother Steve having three, Luchini having three before him, and Joey Luchini one (1995).

After finishing fourth to third-place Caribou at the Ellsworth Invitational three weeks ago by a thin margin – a tie in points was broken by the finish (place) of each team’s seventh runners – the Trojans were ready for a rematch.

“Today the guys wanted to come and didn’t want there to be any doubt at the end,” said MDI coach Bruce Merrill. “I’m very happy. We trained through this meet and we wanted to win it. This is a group that’s learning a lot and we’re getting all the mistakes out of our system as we go.”

The Trojans placed seven runners among the top 24 with Brendan Westphal (fourth, 16:45) and Jake Emlen (seventh, 17:13) leading the way. The rest of the MDI finishers were Berkeley Wanner (11th, 17:25), Aaron Stevens (14th, 17:34), Joe Barter (23rd, 17:57) and Jordan Robinson (24th, 18:04).

Caribou finished second, just five points back of MDI’s 59, while Brewer was third with 80.

“At the first mile, Caribou had four or five runners in front of our second man, but we finished a lot stronger,” Merrill said. “We’re a team that sort of has our front guys run together and off the pace a little, and then the rest of our pack works its way up.”

The Ellsworth girls placed five girls among the top 24 to make it 2-for-2 in head-to-head meets with Hampden Academy.

Lacie Dow led the way with a third-place finish and a time of 19:33, but senior tri-captain Brie Jellison may have had the key performance as she shook off a nagging knee injury, got in the race just before the start, and finished sixth (19:48).

“I was debating whether or not even to run. I was actually kind of surprised I was running,” Jellison said. “Katie was like ‘You’re running,’ so I did. I didn’t decide to run, she did.”

Katie is senior captain Katie Hessler, who finished 18th in 21:43. Jessica Buckingham (14th, 21:08), Lydia Johnson (23rd, 21:57), Lindsey Hardison (44th, 23:20), and Olivia Kamp (46th, 23:30) were the other Eagles finishers.

In the Ellsworth Invitational, Ellsworth finished as runner-up to Sanford after edging HA by five points. Saturday, the margin was eight, 64 to the Broncos’ 72.

“Our girls had pretty good races and I think with us and Hampden, it’s probably going to be like this every meet, where right down through, 1-7, is what will decide it,” said Eagles coach Andy Beardsley.