There’s a very homey feeling when glancing at the roster of the University of Maine cross country teams.

A number of coach Mark Lech’s top returning and incoming runners hail from the Pine Tree State, and the Black Bears appear poised to do some damage along the trails of always competitive America East this fall.

“We just had a time trial on Saturday and I’m trying to pick the rosters from that, especially on the guys’ side,” said Lech.

The Black Bears will get their season off and running at the Dartmouth Invitational in Hanover, N.H., Saturday.

They were originally slated to open at Maryland-Baltimore County, in a meet designed to give America East teams a look at the course where the conference championship meet will be held, but the Retrievers’ coaching staff postponed the meet until Oct. 3, Lech said.

Lech speculated that the park through which UMBC’s course goes through wasn’t available to be used.

The UMaine women will field some strong returning runners to complement a throng of newcomers.

Among the newcomers are Hilary Maxim of Old Town, Corey Conner of Massachusetts, Magen Ellis of Farmingdale and Vanessa Letourneau of Fairfield, a track and field standout making her cross country debut.

“They’re doing real good, all the freshmen are doing real well,” said Lech.

The Bears will also welcome back Stephanie Jette of Fryeburg and Brunswick’s Chelsea Leeman.

Lech is expecting big things out of Maxim, who had an outstanding high school career at Old Town.

“Looking at her workouts right now, she’ll definitely be under 19 minutes for the 5K, how far under is hard to speculate depending on the course and things like that,” Lech said.

The Bears have been toning down their mileage the last week or so with the start of the fall semester, but at training camp recently the women were plugging about 50 to 55 miles a week and the men 70 to 75.

“Usually what I do when we come back, because of the first week of classes, I have them bring the mileage back down a little bit because a lot is going on,” said Lech.

He added that Boston University is the clear favorite in America East, even though the Terrier women lost their frontrunner.

“With them they could get three people to fill in,” Lech said.

The Maine men have a solid corps of returnees, led by Miles Bartlett of Casco, Brendan Carr of Brewer, Corey Bean of Cornville, Charlie Theriault of Massachusetts, Chris Harmon of Scarborough and David Englehutt of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Newcomers Riley Masters of Bangor, Mark Halberson of Falmouth, Spencer McElwain of Caribou and Noah Schoneberg of Buxton will look to support that group.

Masters, coming off an outstanding senior campaign at Bangor, along with the other freshmen, will have to make the adjustment of racing the 8-kilometer collegiate distance compared to 3.1 miles in high school.

“That’s the key issue,” Lech said. “What’ll happen is they’ll find themselves having to go through the 3 mile as fast or as close to as fast as they did last year in the 5K and having two more miles to go from there. That’s part of the process.”

While there is no clear-cut America East men’s favorite, New Hampshire, Boston University and Stony Brook appear to be the top three teams while Maine is among a mix of teams, including UMBC, Albany and Binghamton, that will battle it out for fourth.

Unique meet in the County

The Caribou Invitational highlights a slate of high school cross country meets scheduled for this weekend.

The meet will start with the boys’ varsity races at 1 p.m. at Caribou High.

This meet is slightly different than a typical cross country competition, as it mirrors the old Waterville Invitational in terms of race format.

Here’s how things work: In the varsity races, all the No. 1 runners go off in a single race together, while all the No. 2s go out about 10-15 minutes later, all the way up through No. 7.

Just like in a regular meet, five runners will comprise a team’s score, based on place.

In other words, a team’s No. 7 runner can make all the difference in the world and its frontrunner might not even matter.

If five of a team’s seven runners manage to win his or her race, that equals a perfect score of 5, as opposed to 15 in a regular race.

All these races will be contested on Caribou’s challenging, spectator-friendly 2.73-mile course, many of which are the same trails the Vikings’ cross country ski teams use.

A campground area will be available in town for teams who wish to camp out, while Caribou will also allow teams to stay in the high school gym as well.

rmclaughlin@bangordailynews.net

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