BELFAST, Maine — The Maine Principals’ Association’s Northern Maine Cross Country Regional Championship yielded some of the best performances of the year for local runners.
Both the boys and girls Greater Houlton Christian Academy squads qualified for States based on their impressive fourth-place finishes. The Houlton girls finished seventh, while the boys did not have enough runners to score as a team.
The race was set back a week due to the central Maine site having some concerns of potential damage because of severe weather.
“The rescheduling certainly made for a lot of different conflicts among our runners but those who were able to attend were satisfied with their efforts,” Houlton coach Chris Rines said.
The Regional Championship is run to qualify the top half of teams and the top 30 individuals for the State Championship. States this year are hosted by the North Region and will again be in Belfast Saturday, Nov. 5.
Individual local boys runners who qualified for States include Houlton’s Isaiah Brown; Hodgdon’s Joel Bond; and GHCA’s Wesley Ganglefinger and Cole Winslow. For the girls, Houlton’s Rylee Warman and Alyssa Abbotoni; Katahdin’s Jordyn Ritchie; and GHCA’s Bridgett Hill, Teagan Ewings and Olivia Nadeau all qualified.
In the boys’ race, Brown logged the top overall finish by a local runner by placing fourth with a time of 17:01.38. According to coach Rines, this was a personal best for Brown.
For the girls’ event, Houlton senior Warman ran to her fourth state qualifying event with an 11th-place finish while freshman, Alyssa Abbotoni shaved a minute off her previous best to come in with a 25th place. Co-op individual Jordyn Ritchie of Katahdin ran to a 15th-place finish, good enough to also claim her place at next week’s state championship.
“Jeremy Cook and Victoria Holmes both ran gutsy races and those risks paid off in the form of their fastest career races but unfortunately did not place them well enough to advance next week,” Rines said. “Both runners had been coming on hard the last couple weeks and I know they gave it everything.”
The individual girls results for local runners were: 8, Hill, GHCA, 20:54.34; 9, Ewings, GHCA, 20:59.88; 11, Warman, Houlton, 21:24.29; 15, Ritchie, Katahdin, 21:59.25; 26, Abbotoni, Houlton, 22:59.90; 30, Nadeau, GHCA, 23:45.74; 35, Holmes, Houlton, 24:08.50; 45, Jillian Ross, GHCA, 25:40.68; 49, Jeanelle Ross, GHCA, 25:48.68; 51, Kathryn Nightingale, GHCA, 25:55.20; 83, Lauren Swimm, Houlton, 31:58.12; and 87, Mikayla Fitzpatrick, Houlton, 35:20.69.
Individual boys results for local runners were: 4, Brown, Houlton, 17:01.38; 10, Ganglfinger, GHCA, 17:50.83; 13, Bond, Hodgdon, 18:03.09; 18, Winslow, GHCA, 18:34.55; 39, Cook, Houlton, 20:28.02; 50, Will Austin, GHCA, 21:02.91; 56, Alex Walker, GHCA, 21:13.43; 62, Isaac Potter, GHCA, 21:35.40; 78, Nolan Jacobs, Houlton,25:26.70; and 82, Timothy Youngfellow, Houlton,26:45.40.
