ELLSWORTH – Before the start of Saturday’s Ellsworth Invitational, when the Caribou boys broke their team huddle at the starting line, it sort of resembled a scene from the movie “Hoosiers.”

Before the Vikings broke their huddle and did prerace strides from the starting line, all at once, they shouted, “Team.”

They certainly ran like one on Saturday, as the defending Penobscot Valley Conference champions tucked all five of their scorers in the top 25 to win with 63 points.

Bangor finished second with 82 points, Falmouth third with 111, York fourth with 138 and Foxcroft Academy rounded out the top five with 140.

The girls’ meet was a battle between Western Maine Conference rivals York and Falmouth, with the Wildcats coming out on top, 59 points to 62. John Bapst of Bangor was third with 93 points, Hampden Academy’s 112 was good for fourth and Old Town’s 113 good for fifth.

Individual winners were Ellsworth junior Corey DeWitt on the boys’ side in 14 minutes, 10 seconds, just nine seconds shy of older brother Steven’s course record on the flat 2.75-mile loop, and Old Town’s Hilary Maxim, who overtook HA’s Molly Peverada to win the girls race in 16:54.

Caribou showed why it is the early-season PVC favorite in the boys meet, despite missing Drew Freme, who was sick, coach Roy Alden said.

However, Jordan Powers, who Alden said didn’t have much varsity experience, rose to the occasion to finish 24th.

“Jordan Powers, he poured it on, he really worked hard,” Alden said. “This is really his first full-time varsity experience, so he worked hard today.”

Sam Sheehan led Caribou’s pack with a second-place finish while Spencer McElwain was ninth, Stefan Ciszewski 12th and Josh Tardif 16th.

Alden does feel that if McElwain can get closer to front-runner Sheehan, the Vikes will be better off.

“The closer we can get them together, the better off we’re going to be,” Alden said. “There was a little more room between Spencer and Sam than we would’ve hoped.”

Bangor senior Quaglia, who finished third, enjoyed his first major cross country race.

“It’s not like track at all, there’s a lot of pushing involved [at the start] and its not a clean course,” he said.

Quaglia will get to face Sheehan again next week when the Rams travel to Aroostook County for the Caribou Invitational.

“I can’t wait to [race] him again, it was a great learning experience today,” Quaglia said.

Other PVC runners in the top 10 were Bangor’s Riley Masters (fifth), Ellsworth’s Logan Will (seventh) and Andrew Brunton of Sumner in East Sullivan (eighth).

The difference for York in the girls meet was the fact its top four runners went 3-8-10-11 as opposed to 7-9-14-15 for Falmouth.

“Those four really had a pretty good day, we just got enough of those Falmouth girls to edge them,” said Wildcats coach Matt Covery.

The season-opening Ellsworth meet has been a tradition for most Southern Maine teams such as York, and Covery enjoys not only the team-bonding aspect but the competition that the meet provides.

“It’s nice to see them now because we don’t get to see them until the end of the season,” said Covery, referring to PVC “B” powers such as Old Town and Mount Desert Island. “We love coming up here, the kids have a really good time,” added Covery, who said that his team stayed on Green Lake for the weekend.

Old Town’s Maxim, a junior, surprised herself with her efforts.

“I think today’s pace was really good and I was a little surprised at how fast I was able to go,” Maxim said.

Peverada led the race most of the way but Maxim, who has a slight advantage in speed, used that advantage in the last half-mile.

“Yeah it’s always been like that for me at the end,” Maxim said.

Peverada finished in 17:06, while MDI’s Heather Spurling was fourth, Old Town’s Eliza Tibbits sixth and Kristina Stephens and Hannah Saunders of Caribou in eighth and ninth, respectively.

Zack Hoatson of Berwick Academy was the boys’ JV individual winner in 16:33 while MDI’s Jessica Swanson won the girls’ JV race in 19:51.

Team titles went to the York boys and Falmouth girls.