BELFAST – They crossed the finish line together – shoulder to shoulder, eyelash to eyelash – and neither Adele Espy of Portland’s Waynflete School or Yarmouth’s Anna Makaretz knew who got there first.

Ten minutes later, as they hugged and celebrated their performances at the Maine Cross Country Festival of Champions, they still didn’t know.

“Did I win?,” asked Makaretz of her mother.

Mom didn’t have the answer, either – only the photo as they crossed the line simultaneously determined that Espy had edged Makaretz by less than a tenth of a second to capture the girls’ individual championship during the meet held at the Troy A. Howard Middle School.

Both were timed in 19 minutes, 26.8 seconds for the 3.1-mile course, more than a minute off the meet record of 18:25.99 set last year by Scarborough’s Erica Jesseman.

But that didn’t seem to matter, because it was the spirit of the competition that made the day special for this duo.

“It was a really good finish,” said Makaretz, a senior, “and Adele is such a great athlete that I’m glad that she could be the one that I’d have that sort of finish with.”

Falmouth placed its top five runners among the first 32 finishers overall to win the team championship, scoring 115 points to outdistance runner-up Scarborough (140). Mount Desert Island was third with 178 points, followed by Yarmouth (245), Catherine McAuley of Portland (251) and John Bapst of Bangor (256) as the top six among 37 scoring teams.

Caribou (258), Brewer (266), Maranacook of Readfield (278) and Waynflete (293) rounded out the top 10.

In all, 394 runners completed the race, which was held in three heats – seeded runners, unseeded runners and freshmen.

But Espy and Makaretz – acquaintances from Nordic skiing competition – soon separated themselves from the rest of the seeded field.

Initially they ran in a four-runner lead pack with Megan Ellis of Hall-Dale of Farmingdale and Hilary Maxim of Old Town.

But Maxim dropped off the lead pace relatively early, and Ellis fell back about midway through the race, leaving Espy and Makaretz by themselves – but virtually running as one.

“I felt a little slow because there was only one person ahead of me, but I don’t think I was slow because I was able to keep up with Anna,” said Espy.

Makaretz eventually inched in front, but by never more than a few inches. And as they entered the final sprint, Espy pulled back along side Makaretz, and the rest was left for the camera to decide.

“It was a good advantage that Anna was right ahead of me so I could keep in mind where she was all the time,” said Espy, a junior. “I just wanted to be together or ahead of her at the finish line.”

“Anna definitely pulled me through the race.”

Ellis finished third, nine seconds behind the winners, followed by MDI’s Heather Spurling, a junior who was unable to finish this event in 2006.

“Last year at this race I had a really bad day and passed out before the finish line,” said Spurling, “so I just wanted to make this race better than last year, and I really did my best.”

Sophomore Kim Spencer of John Bapst finished fifth, with senior Kasey Eaton of Medomak Valley of Waldoboro sixth. Maxim, a senior at Old Town, settled for an eighth-place finish, while teammate Kate Goodness won the unseeded runners heat.