WASHBURN, Maine — The Aroostook League held its championship meet Friday in the rain at Washburn District High School, with the host Beavers sweeping the team titles and several individuals earning berths as All-Aroostook selections.
Since Caribou and Presque Isle compete in a separate league (the Penobscot Valley Conference, which has its own championship meet this coming weekend), those teams were involved only to determine which of their individual performers attain All-Aroostook honors.
The remainder of the schools competing — Fort Kent, Greater Houlton Christian Academy, Houlton, Limestone-MSSM and Washburn — were vying for league supremacy as well as All-Aroostook individual status.
The Beaver girls scored 22 points to beat out Limestone-MSSM for the top spot, while the boys’ squad from WDHS also prevailed by tallying 41 points to top Fort Kent (47), Limestone-MSSM (67) and GHCA (67). Houlton did not have the required number of racers to figure in the team results.
The individual race champs were Mandy Graham of Presque Isle and Isaiah Brown of Houlton. Graham was first in the 2.8-mile girls’ competition with a time of 19 minutes and 5.7 seconds. She was just ahead of Grace Graham of GHCA, who crossed the finish line in 19:09.5, while Rylee Warman of Houlton took third in 19:26.8.
Brown was the boys’ winner with a 15:30.6 clocking for the 2.8-mile event. Tsion MacLeod of Caribou was the runner-up in 15:36.1 and Viking teammate Chathu Karunasiri was next in 15:38.1.
In the large school individual standings for girls, Mandy Graham was followed by Caribou’s Julia Page, whose time was 19:35. In third was Simone Michaud of Caribou (19:48.2), fourth was Madeline Gudde (19:52.6) and fifth was Isabelle Jackson of PI (19:59.9).
For small schools, behind Grace Graham and Warman were Jordan Tanguay of Fort Kent (19:32.2) in third, Allison Johnson of Limestone-MSSM (19:35.1) in fourth and Emilia Churchill of Washburn (20:03.8) in fifth.
On the boys’ side, for large schools, after MacLeod and Karunasiri to round out the top five were, in order of finish, Jason Bartley of Presque Isle (15:41.1), Evan Desmond of Caribou (16:19.4) and Caleb Hunter of Caribou (16:23.1).
Trailing Brown in the small school division were Derek Baker of Washburn (16:02.2) in second, Wesley Ganglfinger of GHCA (16:19.7) in third, and Devon Maynard of Washburn and Charles Parham of Fort Kent, who tied for fourth (16:48.4).
A total of 59 boys and 48 girls competed in Friday’s event on the soggy course.
The Penobscot Valley Conference championship meet is next for the Vikings and the Wildcats, and takes place at Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln Saturday beginning at noon. All the local teams will then participate in the Eastern Maine Championships, held at Belfast Oct. 24.
