The Caribou boys and girls were both victorious at Saturday’s Presque Isle Invitational Cross Country Meet, which featured teams from Aroostook County as well as four schools from the Bangor area.
The Viking girls scored the win by 10 points over runner-up Old Town, 67-77, while the boys were unchallenged in tallying 20 points. The next closest pursuer was Old Town with 88.
Individually, it was John Bapst’s Amanda Boyd capturing the girls’ title as she finished the five-kilometer course in 21 minutes and 18.41 seconds. The boys’ champion was Isaiah Brown of Houlton, who finished in 18:33.83.
Sixty-one girls and 58 boys competed in the varsity races held at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
After Boyd, Grace Graham of Greater Houlton Christian Academy was next at 22:06.42. Audree O’Meara of Old Town (22:18.69) edged out Julia Page of Caribou (22:19.7) for third place by just over a second. Mandy Graham of the host Wildcats placed fifth in 22:35.85.
Rylee Warman of Houlton was sixth in 22:53.63, Allison Johnson of MSSM eighth in 23:00.87 and Kassie Farley of Washburn 11th in 23:26.02 to lead their teams.
The Caribou foursome of Madeline Gudde, Simone Michaud, Anya O’Meara and Emma Belyea all were between the 14th and 20th positions to secure the team championship.
In the boys’ competition, the Vikings prevailed thanks to tucking five runners within the overall top nine. Caleb Hunter took second to Brown in 18:42.57 and teammate Chathu Karunasiri was just behind Hunter in 18:43.33.
Jason Bartley of Presque Isle came in fourth in 19:00.98, but two more Vikings followed as Daniel Randolph was fifth in 19:10.32 and Tsion MacLeod sixth in 19:19.4. Two more runners crossed before Elijah Verhoff rounded out the scoring by clocking the course in 19:38.74.
Washburn’s Devon Maynard led his team with a 12th-place performance with a time of 20:09.46. MSSM’s Ahmed Beshir was one position back at 20:24.99. Wesley Ganglfinger of GHCA followed in 14th in 20:26.02.
In the JV meets held earlier in the day, Caribou had the only full girls’ team and featured the race winner, Emily Austin, whose time was 25:01.81. The lone challenger for the Viking JV team was Old Town, but Caribou rolled, 17-42. Alec Cyr of Caribou won the race in 20:28.1.
A make-up meet for the local Class C schools was held last Tuesday in Fort Kent. All but MSSM and Houlton were represented.
On the girls’ side, GHCA’s Graham won in 22:25 and Washburn had the only full team. The Beaver boys had 30 points to best Fort Kent (36) and GHCA (54). Washburn’s Derek Baker was the winner in 18:56, with Maynard taking second in 20:01.
Caribou will host all the County schools Friday in a unique “under the lights” meet at CHS beginning at 7:30 p.m.
