ELLSWORTH – The Caribou girls and Falmouth boys each endured a long bus ride – from different ends of the state – Saturday to win the first big cross country meet of the season, the Ellsworth Invitational.

The Viking girls, led by Janelle Gagnon’s third-place finish, tucked three runners in the top 10 to finish seven points ahead of runner-up York, 75-82. Defending meet champ John Bapst of Bangor was third with 99 points, followed by Mount Desert Island (104) and Hampden Academy (111) to round out the top 5.

The Falmouth boys put four runners in the top eight to hold off the Caribou boys 51-69. York finished third (85), Ellsworth fourth (154) and Winthrop fifth (156).

Individual titles went to Penobscot Valley Conference standouts on both sides. Sam Sheehan of Caribou was just 12 seconds shy of Steve DeWitt’s course record, finishing the flat, fast 2.75-mile loop in 14 minutes, 14 seconds while Madeline Glover from John Bapst won the overall girls title in 16:37.

In the girls meet, coach Tom Beckum was not only pleased with the way his Vikings ran, but excited.

“The girls are very excited [to win this meet],” he said. “This is one of the biggest teams that Caribou’s had in a decade.”

Beckum noted that Caribou has only “three or four returners” on the team, but two runners who placed in the top 10 for the Vikes are new to the team – Gagnon (third overall), who ran spring track last year and is new to cross country, and freshman Anna Saunders, who was ninth. Julie Carson finished eighth.

“Our team is about 75-80 percent freshmen, so they didn’t get to train with us the whole summer,” Beckum said. “We had a lot of freshman girls run fast today that are gonna contribute to this team down the line. They’re most likely gonna improve week by week since they didn’t get to train the whole summer.”

Unlike other teams in the PVC, the Vikings start their season early to accommodate for the potato harvest break.

Beckum also noted that it’s still very early in the season, and that it’s the meets in October that matter the most.

“We want to finish this way,” he said. “I’d rather finish this way than start this way.”

Bapst senior Glover took charge as the runners went into the woods, and by the time she came out, she blew by the first mile and no one was within striking distance.

“It was pretty exciting [to win] because I definitely wasn’t expecting it,” she said. “That’s what I usually do, start off slower and work my way up,” she added, referring to the fact she held back a bit at the start of the race and avoided going out too fast.

The PVC was well-represented in the top 10, as Molly Peverada of Hampden was second (17:15), Shauna Lynch of Ellsworth fifth (17:52), MDI’s Emily Farley sixth (17:55) and Hilary Maxim of Old Town seventh (18:02).

In the boys meet, by the looks of the final team scores, Class B is going to be perhaps the top class in the state as far as boys cross country is concerned in 2005.

The Falmouth Yachtsmen boys were too much for the Caribou boys, as Falmouth went 2-4-7-8 and held off the tough Vikings.

Falmouth co-coach Jorma Kurry, who coaches the team along with Danny Paul, knew they’d face a strong battle from Caribou, which won the meet in 2004.

“They’re always strong; we always expect a tough fight from them here,” he said. “They won last year so we knew they’d be back.”

Caribou did make it close, with Sheehan’s first-place run helping the cause, but Falmouth’s depth was the deciding factor, as usually is the case in cross country.

“We like what we saw today and we have high hopes,” Kurry said. “We have a tough schedule, we’ll see teams like York and Cape Elizabeth and Greely through the course of the season.”

Kurry, whose team bus hit I-95 at 7 a.m., enjoys what his team gets out of the trip.

“It’s a great bonding experience for our kids to come up here and be together for a whole day,” he said. “The course is really easy compared to a lot of courses so for newcomers it’s a great experience and we’ve always enjoyed the trip.”

Other PVC athletes who finished in the top 10 were Corey DeWitt of Ellsworth (third, 14:36), Ryan Lena of John Bapst (sixth, 15:16) and Seth Tillotson of Old Town (10th, 15:36).