Graves, Jovanelli win Hunt 5K race Luchini falters after running into pedestrian

BANGOR – Muggy, hot weather in the 80s returned for the Walter Hunt Memorial 3K and baked nearly 400 runners Friday. Evan Graves of Bar Harbor took top honors in 8 minutes, 38 seconds, while former Brewer High standout and current UMaine runner Heather Jovanelli claimed the women’s crown in 9:59.

Joey Luchini of Ellsworth (8:48), Bar Harbor’s Judson Cake and Michael Bunker (both 8:54) and Richard Chadwick (9:10) of Penniac, New Brunswick, rounded out the top five on the men’s side. Stillwater’s Cassie Hintz (10:13), Anne Favolise of Columbia (10:19), Gladys Ganiel (10:27) of Harrington and Heather Clark of Brewer (10:34) finished 2-3-4-5 on the women’s side.

In the men’s race, it became a two-man duel between Graves and Luchini after the mile mark, but after Luchini ran into a pedestrian coming around the corner onto Main Street, Graves surged.

“I started picking it up on the downhill [on Main Street], and just put it away there,” Graves said. “After that, I was more concerned with finishing than with Joey.”

Graves approved of the muggy weather.

“The heat was a bonus for me,” he said. “I’ve been training in the heat a lot, so I’m used to it and I like it.”

Graves, a recent graduate of UMaine-Presque Isle, didn’t have a strategy.

“I just wanted to go out and run hard, and work with my team, and have one of us win,” he said. Graves and teammates Bunker and Cake all work at Poorboys Restaurant in Bar Harbor.

Luchini, who ran the race for the first time without brother Louie, felt like he just didn’t have it.

“I just didn’t feel well today,” said Luchini, last year’s winner. “Running into the pedestrian broke my momentum. I just didn’t have it today. I knew some good runners would show up, and Evan ran a great race and I didn’t.”

Two perennial top-10 performers on the road racing scene, Ellsworth High coach Andy Beardsley (9:17) and Phil LeBreton (9:20) of Bangor, finished sixth and seventh.

Other top finishers in the race included some of the area’s top high school and college runners: Hampden Academy’s Brian Herasymchuck (eighth in 9:21), who will run for UMaine this fall, current UMaine and former Brewer runner Ian Fraser (ninth in 9:21), and Brewer High senior-to-be David Haluska (12th in 9:38).

In the women’s race, Jovanelli, who’s heading into her junior year at UMaine, decided to run the race a couple days ago.

“It’s not in my training plan, I decided to run it yesterday,” she said. “My training is going very well, though.”

Jovanelli did feel a little burned from the heat.

“It was a little hot out there, so I just wanted to go out there, run, have some fun, and work through the fatigue,” she said.

Jovanelli’s winning time was one of the best in the race’s history as no recent women’s winner has come close to a sub-10-minute finish since Jo-Ann Nealey of Northport finished in 10:00 in 1996.

Wendy Delan of Buxton set the women’s record of 9:28 in 1988.

A total of 395 runners finished Friday’s race.