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| Contributed photo/Dave Allen Lucas Kinney, participating in Caribou’s home meet last month, came in 12th place in Saturday’s Eastern Maine Class B championship meet held in Belfast. |
By Kevin Sjoberg
Sports Reporter
BELFAST — All four local cross country teams are heading to the state meet following their performances in the regionals Saturday.
The Caribou and Washburn girls’ and boys’ teams all qualified for this weekend’s state meet, to be held in Cumberland.
In Class B boys, the top eight out of 15 participating teams moved on and the Vikes placed fifth with 160 points. Lucas Kinney came in 12th overall in 17 minutes and 37.8 seconds on the five-kilometer course, which coach Roy Alden said was the best race of his high school career. Freshman Kyle Morris was 34th in 18:20.6 and beat his personal record by 40 seconds, while senior Keith Draper was 37th in 18:24.7, senior Tyler Strid 39th in 18:26.58 and sophomore Tsion MacLeod 42nd in 18:29.4 to close out the scoring.
“The kids had a great day,” Alden said. “This is a young team that competed extremely hard and had their best races when it was the most important.
“They were extremely focused and stayed positive, working together in a pack for much of the race,” he added. “I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished this year and we look forward to competing at the state meet.”
For the girls, the top seven teams out of 13 earned the right to compete again this Saturday, and Caribou placed sixth with 132 points.
“We had six girls out of the seven run their personal best time for the year,” said Viking girls’ coach Thomas Beckum. “As a whole, the team ran faster when it mattered most and I’m looking forward to watching them race next week.”
Leading the Vikings was junior Robyn Larrabee, whose time of 21:04 put her 16th. Nerissa Larrabee was 30th in 21:46.63, followed by juniors Chelsea Haney (33rd, 21:57.6), Kristin Macek (37th, 22:11.6) and Lauren Chapman (38th, 22:17.4). Chapman showed great improvement in knocking 1:05 off her time from the Festival of Champions meet held on the same course three weeks earlier.
In the Class C competition, it was Washburn’s Carsyn Koch taking her fourth consecutive regional title by finishing in 19:30.3 — 28 seconds ahead of runner-up Tia Tardy of Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln.
The defending state champion Beaver girls finished second to Orono. The Washburn boys placed fourth out of 10 teams. Both will compete in the state meet Saturday.
