HERMON – With postseason cross country meets on the horizon, teams are trying to find the right recipe for big-meet success.

The Presque Isle boys and John Bapst of Bangor girls showed they have the right ingredients to be formidable challengers at next weekend’s Penobscot Valley Conference championships, earning team championships at the Pendale Invitational Saturday at Hermon High School.

The Wildcats, despite missing two top runners in seniors Corey Park, who took his SATs Saturday, and Matt Howe, who had a family obligation, tucked four scorers in the top 10 and overtook three other teams with 41 points.

Host Hermon finished second with 57 points, two points ahead of third-place Orono (59) while John Bapst rounded out the scorers with 68.

Bapst and PI were the only scoring teams in the girls competition, and the Crusaders scored 20 points to the ‘Cats’ 35.

Penobscot Valley of Howland, Bangor Christian, Orono and Hermon fielded partial teams.

Kim Spencer of John Bapst cruised to the girls’ individual title in 20 minutes, 16 seconds over 3.1 miles while Matthieu Nadeau of Orono took boys honors in 18:15.

In the boys meet, Presque Isle hasn’t qualified for the state meet as a team since the fall of 2003, and third-year head coach Mike Waugh is achieving his goal of putting the Wildcats back on the cross country map.

“I think we’re getting there,” he said. “We have a few meets coming up where we can do some damage.”

Despite missing Park and Howe, the ‘Cats got strong performances from Alex Carter, Jacob Johnson, Brandon Hafford and Jeremy Fuller, who finished second, third, fifth and 10th, respectively.

Jacob Brown (24th, Locke Robbins (26th) and Zach Barnes (27th) rounded out PI’s lineup.

Like a lot of teams, the Wildcats are toning down their speed work and bumping up miles, which has Waugh convinced his team is hitting its stride at the right time.

“I’m feeling very confident,” he said. “We’re hoping to peak in time for regionals. Our focus right now is regionals.”

He added the ‘Cats have a mindset of earning the state-meet berth which eluded them by the narrowest of margins a couple of years ago.

“Our goal all year has been to get to states,” Waugh said. “Two years ago, my first year coaching, we missed by only one point. I definitely think this year will be different.”

Other top-10 finishers included Penobscot Valley’s Caleb Raymond in fourth, John Bapst’s Nick Christie in sixth, Nick Byeres and Aaron Jellison of Hermon in seventh and eighth, respectively, and Jordan Hess of Orono in ninth.

In the girls meet, something John Bapst coach Joe Capehart stresses is that improvement is a valuable statistic every meet, no matter what the team scores are at the end.

“Our motto this year has been to improve every meet. I think we’ve improved more or less every meet,” said Capehart, a former Bangor High running standout.

The Crusaders’ pack time Saturday (the difference between the first and fifth runner) was a solid 3 minutes, 14 seconds.

“The top girls have been doing well all season,” Capehart said. “My 4-5-6 improved their times today. That’s good going into PVCs.”

Maggie Bryant finished third for John Bapst, while Maren Askins was fifth, Tara Nitardy eighth, Stesha Rudnicki 10th and Sally Pekenham 16th.

Capehart said it’s easy to coach when you have a group that works hard each day.

“I have a really great group of kids,” he said. “The girls work really hard. They just like to run.”

Other individuals in the top 10 included Casey McCloskey of PVHS in second, Presque Isle’s Alicia Palmer (fourth), Katie Feeney of Hermon (sixth), PI’s Krista Buch (seventh) and the Hawks’ Caitlyn Barrows (ninth).

Hermon’s Spencer DeCoste (21:26) and Shaylyn Adams of John Bapst (24:03) took individual honors in the junior varsity races.