MDI girls, Mt. Blue boys claim crowns Festival attracts 42 teams, 750 runners; DeWitt, Ivey win individual titles

BELFAST – The Maine Cross Country Festival of Champions on Saturday could be a revealing preview of the Class B regional and state championships on the girls side.

Six of the top seven teams were Class B schools.

Coming out on top was Mount Desert Island, led by Emily Farley’s sixth-place finish, by a 124-138 margin over runner-up Cape Elizabeth. Maranacook of Readfield was third out of 24 teams with 154, Hampden Academy fourth (186), and Old Town fifth (200) on a crisp, sunny day on the 5-kilometer course at Troy Howard Middle School.

The boys meet came right down to the wire, with Mt. Blue of Farmington besting Cumberland, R.I., 79-83. Defending Class C state champ Lisbon was third with 177, Ellsworth fourth with 175, and Caribou’s 181 rounded out the top five out of 30 scoring teams.

Individual titles went to Corey DeWitt of Ellsworth in the boys race (16 minutes, 6 seconds) and Mandy Ivey from Oxford Hills in South Paris in the girls (19:06).

In the girls meet, MDI showed that the rankings don’t lie. The Trojans came into the meet ranked second in the latest coaches’ poll, and coach Bruce Merrill’s team made a big statement.

“We ran very well today; seven girls under 22 [minutes] is great,” he said. “We’re confident that we’re going to keep getting better.”

One of the meet’s unique features is a race for freshmen. However, they can still figure in the team scoring, and that helped the Trojans, as freshman Heather Spurling won her race in 20:40, good enough for 20th overall in the whole field.

“For a lot of the teams that are here, they had a lot of runners in the top five that were in the freshman race. All of the races are competitive and all of them mean something,” Merrill said.

MDI’s middle-of-the-pack runners helped them get past Cape Elizabeth. The Trojans’ 3-4-5 runners (Susan Falt, Christy Spurling, Taylor Kelly) placed 26th, 37th, and 38th, compared to 34th, 43rd, and 48th for the Capers.

“Right now, we’re just trying to run hard and progress every week and make sure we’re ready on the 29th [of October, for the state championship],” Merrill said.

One of the top runners in the PVC, John Bapst of Bangor’s Madeline Glover, did not compete in the meet due to illness, according to coach John Emerson.

Molly Peverada of Hampden and Jolene Belanger of Bangor turned in strong performances as they finished third (19:25.9) and fifth (19:48.6), respectively.

In the boys meet, the Mt. Blue Cougars surprised a lot of people – including their coach – by nipping the favorites from Cumberland, R.I.

“We weren’t expecting that we could beat Cumberland,” coach Kelly Cullenburg said. “We were hoping that we could place better then last year; we placed fourth last year.”

Like MDI in the girls race, Mt. Blue used the middle of their pack to earn the victory, with the Cougars’ fifth runner, Ben Lochala, placing 28th, 11 slots ahead of the Clippers’ fifth, David Sherman.

“After the finish and seeing where our top seven guys placed, we kind of had a feeling we were gonna be in the top two but didn’t think we were gonna beat Cumberland until we found out where they’re fifth guy was,” Cullenburg said.

Leading the way up front for Mt. Blue, the three-time defending EM class A champ, were Adam Deveau (sixth, 16:46), Joe Staples (11th, 17:10), and Thayne White (16th, 17:26).

Ellsworth junior DeWitt was in a tight race himself, battling PVC rival Sam Sheehan of Caribou along with Tyler Clark of Lisbon and Andrew Coleman from Cumberland, R.I.

In the end, DeWitt’s patience through a fast start and his strong kick enabled him to outsprint Clark for the win. Coleman finished third (16:16) and Sheehan fourth 16:17.1).

DeWitt said that he knew Sheehan’s plan, and that was a key factor.

“I know what he [Sheehan] does. He pretty much does the same thing every race, goes out hard and tries to bury me,” DeWitt said. “This race I held back, those guys out front, they went out too hard. I ran a 5:05 [first mile] and was probably 15 seconds back at that point.”

DeWitt didn’t expect the fast time coming in.

“I was looking seriously to come into this race and just run anything under 16:20,” he said. “We had a real tough week of training. I did not expect to run a 16:05 or whatever it was. I’m ecstatic.”

Overall, the meet drew 750 runners and 42 teams.

Other winners included Jenna George (22:51) and Mike Verdier (19:11), both from Cumberland, R.I., in the unseeded sections and Robbie Leeman of Lewiston took the boys freshman race in 17:48.