In last Thursday’s middle school cross-country meet held in Caribou, Teagan Ewings, seventh-grader at Greater Houlton Christian Academy and Logan Lusardi, an eighth-grader from Caribou, captured the Aroostook League titles.
A total of 42 girls ran, while 40 boys took to the course. The GHCA girls and boys teams both finished third in the standings. The girls finished behind Caribou and Presque Isle, while the boys came in behind Caribou and Union 122.
Ewings, who was undefeated throughout the season, but heavily contested at times by Caribou’s Maddison Jandreau, finished the two-mile course in a time of 13:04.03, with Jandreau coming in at 13:24.37.
In the boy’s race, Lusardi ran extremely well finishing with a time of 12:01.65, followed by his teammate Jacob Berkoski at 12:08.44. Lusardi had been challenged by Greater Houlton Christian Academy seventh-grader Will Austin through the season, but an injury hampered Austin, who finished third at 12:14.10.
Five of the 11 runners from the Greater Houlton Christian Academy finished in the top 10. They were Ewings, Austin, eighth-grader Cole Winslow, sixth, 12:54.28; fifth-grader Mia Henderson, seventh, 14:24.95; and seventh-grader Olivia Nadeau, 14:32.83.
All of the GHCA middle school runners improved tremendously over the six-week season.
“When we started the season, I had each one of them write down goals they wanted to accomplish during the season through the end of the season,” said coach Angie Ewings. “We accomplished most of those goals.”
From the first meet of the season held in Caribou to the final Aroostook League meet, Ewings knocked off 22 seconds, with her first run in Caribou at 13:26.47, while Henderson reduced her time by over a minute and a half, with her first run 15:53.45. Nadeau took off three minutes from her initial 17:32 time and Katherine and Alyssa Nightingale each deducted about two minutes each. Katherine ran her first race in a time of 23:11.10 and in the Aroostook League meet she finished with a time of 21:29.24, while her younger sister, Alyssa, started the year with a time of 25:32.73 and finished with 22:57.12.
The boys team subtracted time off their initial race in Caribou, as well. Austin was a minute quicker than his first race time of 13:14.26. Winslow went from 14:19.25 down to 12:54.28, while sixth-grader Jeremy Stone improved from 15:25.94 to 14.09.21, just missing the top 10 as he landed in 13th.
Eighth-grader Isaac Potter went from 17:12.70 down to 15:21.50, while sixth-grader Joel Carmichael reduced his initial time of 17:13.99 down to 15:33.09. Fifth-grader Austin Winslow was among the most improved runners from his first run of 21:04.87 to 18.37.77.
However, the most improved runner over the course of the season was fifth-grader Brock Thompson. Thompson began the season running Caribou’s course in a time of 20:01.58 and last Thursday had reduced his time to 16:22.81.
The GHCA runners used two themes this year — “It’s a hill. Get over it.” and “Let’s do this.”
“The hill theme had more meaning to us than just an actual hill,” said Ewings. “It meant that whatever challenges/goals that we faced, we as a team could get over them or accomplish those goals.
“There was never a challenge that any one of these athletes would not try,” added Ewings. “I had no complainers nor did I have any quitters. As a coach, I am not about the win. I want to build a foundation for the love of the sport for a lifetime. Once this is established, they will want to strive.”
The “Let’s do this” theme was in honor of Henderson’s uncle, Aaron, who died two years ago serving in the United States Army in Afghanistan.
Ewings noted she started applying more responsibility to parents last year and this year, they were all on board and part of the overall success of the team.
“Parents are a part of the picture, too,” said Ewings. “They need to keep these kids going during the off-season. I have them for a very short period of time, so if I had to spend less time conditioning them and more time with training, they would see a world of difference.”
Though the season has ended, the GHCA runners and their coach are looking forward to next year.
“I am hoping that this team will come into the season ready to train,” said Ewings. “I am already excited for next year. I am going to highly encourage each one to do a minimum of training and to join in the informal group runs that we have though out the spring and summer.”
