John Bapst teams sweep in Bucksport Old Town, Caribou win in County

It wasn’t really a question of who was going to win the Bucksport Invitational. The question was, would both the boys and girls earn a perfect score.

Not quite.

However, the John Bapst of Bangor cross country teams came close. Led by first-place efforts by David McCourt and Maddy Glover, the Crusaders took both Bucksport Invitational competitions easily on a hot, cloudless day behind Carmichael Field.

Led by the 1-2 punch of McCourt and Ryan Lena, the Bapst boys recorded a perfect score of 15 as McCourt toured the 3.1-mile course in 17 minutes, 47 seconds and Lena followed at 18:04.

Mattanawcook of Lincoln finished a distant second with 57, Orono was third in the seven-team field with 77, the host Golden Bucks followed with 107 and Hermon notched 111. Piscataquis of Guilford and Narraguagus of Harrington had no team scores.

The John Bapst girls missed a perfect score by one point (16), outdistancing Bucksport by 34, as the Bucks tallied 40 points. The Lynx, Red Riots, Hawks, Knights and Pirates didn’t have any girls’ team scores.

Meanwhile, during a busy day for high school cross country, Cassie Hintz’s first-place finish led the Old Town girls to the title at the Caribou Invitational while Sam Sheehan’s first-place finish helped the host Vikings capture the boys title.

Despite the small turnout at Bucksport, Crusaders coach John Emerson was impressed with the meet.

“Bucksport puts together a really nice race,” he said. “It was a bit smaller this year. There are other places to go on Saturday, such as the Caribou and Waterville [Invitationals]. It’s early in the season, and there are a lot of meets.”

Emerson’s boys, who finished fourth in a competitive Ellsworth Invitational field last weekend, are loaded with veterans and young runners.

“There are four seniors on the boys’ squad right now, and two of them have been running for the past four years,” he said. “The younger runners are following in their footsteps, this team is staying tight and packing well. Intrateam competition has been very healthy for us.”

Backing up McCourt and Lena were 3-4-5 runners Zach Whited, Andrew Willey and Andrew Askins. Orono’s Jay Lewey finished sixth overall while Mattanawcook of Lincoln’s Charlie Fichera, John Bapst’s David Kavin, Orono’s Thomas Hormsby and JB’s Hunter Umphrey rounded out the top 10.

In the girls meet, this one was never in doubt, as junior Glover (20:17) and senior Courtney Martin (20:19) took control a half-mile into the race and never looked back.

“Every year somebody new has come in for us,” Emerson said. “Last year it was Courtney Martin. She worked hard all summer, and has been running a close second for us, giving Maddy Glover some competition.”

That competition has been helping senior Nicole Lavertu and freshman Eve Jordan, who finished third and fourth, respectively.

“Not only has the team matured and have strong leadership, it has the seeds of a good team for next year as well,” Emerson said.

Emerson’s girls believe in the Bill Belichick-style of one game, or meet, at a time.

“They don’t want to get overconfident,” Emerson said. “They want to treat every race as an important race. It bounced around [last year] with Cape Elizabeth, us, Ellsworth and Hampden last year, and it turned out to be Hampden and Bapst when everything shook down.”

The next big step for the Crusaders is the Sectional Meet in Old Town in two weeks.

“Sectionals is always a great big meet,” said Emerson. “You see all the top competition, kids get an objective of where they stand and they learn who their competition is. We’ll look to do our best there.”

At the Caribou Invitational, Old Town showed off its depth as Hintz finished first over the 3.06-mile course in 17:38 while Hilary Maxim (4th, 21:37), Ashleigh Madden (7th, 21:57), Chelsea Nye (8th, 22:02) and Eliza Tibbits (9th, 22:14) all finished in the top 10 in a field of 68 runners. There was only a difference of 37 seconds in the times of Maxim and Tibbits.

The Lee Academy girls placed second in the meet with 74 points and were followed by Mount Desert Island (70), Caribou (101), Foxcroft Academy (137), Brewer (142), Presque Isle (149), Sumner of East Sullivan (196), Greater Houlton Christian Academy (226) and Fort Kent.

Also earning top five individual finishes were MDI’s Emily Farley (2nd, 20:56), Caribou’s Julie Carson (3rd, 21:22) and Sumner’s Vanessa Brunton (5th, 21:40).

In the boys race, Caribou also showed off its depth as Sheehan finished first in 16:57, followed by teammates Dimitri Luthi (3rd, 17:23), Cale Dubay(6th, 17:58), Andrew Ciszewski (7th, 18:08), and Ricky Michaud (13th, 18:39).

Brewer placed second with 80 points after strong efforts by Brendan Carr (4th, 17:42), John Snow (5th, 17:46) and Nathan Haluska (10th, 18:23). Old Town’s Travis Vicary finished second in 17:14.

MDI earned a third-place team finish with 85 points, followed by Presque Isle (96), Old Town (99), Madawaska (167), Fort Kent (172), Sumner (197) and Lee (215).