They started running together in high school, and they’ve re-united at the college level.

Brothers Steven and Joey DeWitt, former Ellsworth High cross country and track and field standouts, have enjoyed exceptional campaigns this year at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, with Steven DeWitt winning the 3,000-meter run at last weekend’s Greater Boston Track Club Invitational in a blazing 8 minutes, 8.99 seconds.

That time is the best in New England, regardless of division.

Not bad for a guy who hadn’t raced on a track in two years.

“I felt really good about that, I didn’t know what to expect. I was happy about that,” the graduate of Stanford University said.

Joey DeWitt, a two-time All American coming off a strong cross country campaign, didn’t think his brother was being serious when he initially said he was heading to the Lowell campus last summer.

“I thought it was a joke,” said Joey, who is redshirting this indoor season but ran the mile unattached at the Greater Boston meet, clocking a 4:14.25.

After finding out his brother was interested in applying to medical school, Joey mentioned the program to Steven, and things snowballed from there.

“Joey’s really the one that got the ball started,” said UML coach Gary Gardner. “Joey had mentioned the program.”

“We knew he’d step in and be one of the top runners and stuff, he came in and made a big impact for us,” Joey DeWitt added.

Steven, a graduate student majoring in biology, helped lead UML to a strong second-place finish at the New England Cross Country Championships last October, taking runner-up honors to always-competitive Brown University.

The River Hawks then went on to place 13th out of 24 teams at the NCAA Division II championships.

The brothers’ leadership skills, in particular those of Steven, have also been a plus. They, along with sprinter Kevin Bettencourt, who is Joey’s roommate, are the lone seniors on the UML squad.

“Steven’s come in, and he’s done a great job,” said Gardner. “He’s a real leader and the kids look up to him. He’s done a great job with that.”

The elder DeWitt has relished the chance to enjoy having his brother as a teammate again, thus being able to train together and occasionally with youngest brother Corey, a freshman at Dartmouth College.

“It’s been great, over winter break we were able to train together, ran all around Ellsworth,” Steven DeWitt said before the River Hawks made the short drive down I-93 to Boston for their weekly speedworkout Tuesday night.

The brothers first ran together as teammates in 2001-02, when Steven was a senior and Joey a freshman at Ellsworth.

DeWitt’s training regime at UML has been vastly different than the one he faced running at Stanford.

“I would say the main difference is that the mileage is higher,” he said.

Gardner said that Steven DeWitt is averaging roughly 80 miles per week, and added that he’s done a great job adjusting to that training philosophy.

“It’s a little different philosophy than he had [at Stanford], and he bought into it when he came here,” said Gardner. “It’s worked out well for both of us.”

While you’d expect most sibling teammates to be competitive with each other in practice, particularly in speed workouts, Gardner said that has not been the case.

“They save their races for the race instead of using them in practice. They do a good job of being smart about the training,” said Gardner.

“They’re both pretty relaxed kids. They haven’t left any races on the track yet.”

The coach is certainly blessed to have a runner of DeWitt’s caliber come in for just the one year, a rarity in collegiate running.

“The chances of something like that working out are pretty slim, to get a kid of that quality to [come] on for a year,” said Gardner, who added that both brothers have given the team a significant boost.

Steven’s first semester in Lowell kept him busy. Along with his running and biology studies, he’s been working in a lab in Lowell and as a teaching assistant on campus.

Fortunately, Gardner is very understanding of the busy aspects of a college student’s life.

“It’s fairly flexible,” DeWitt said of the busy slate. “Coach is good about that, if you have a conflicting schedule than he’s pretty lenient, I can practice later in the day if I need to.”

Both brothers will compete at this weekend’s Terrier Invitational at Boston University. Steven DeWitt will compete in the 3,000 while Joey will run the 1,000.

Records a-Brewing

The Brewer girls 4×220-meter relay team continued their assault on the Eastern Maine Indoor Track League record books during a multiteam meet last weekend.

The Witches’ quartet of juniors Erika Cote and Kira Giroux and seniors Colleen Carr and Sarah Risser broke the EMITL record Brewer set last year in clocking a speedy 1:51.28, which is tops in the state this winter regardless of class.

That mark is 0.24 of a second quicker than the standard of 1:51.52 that Cote, Giroux, Carr and Brittany Albert established in last winter’s EMITL championship meet.

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net

990-8275