From left, junior Caden Mattson and sophomores Andrew Szwez and Ian Renwick toe up to the starting line at the Penobscot Valley conference cross-coun- try championship in Presque Isle October 13. Courtesy of Todd Eckenfelder
Presque Isle—The girls varsity cross-country team placed second at the Penobscot Valley Conference Cross Country Championships October 13 in Presque Isle, with Grace Broughton, Lanny Zentz, Oshi Ragot and Susannah Jakub sweeping 13th through 16th place, and Jenna Eldridge placing 22nd. Those 68 total points edged them ahead of Houlton, with Orono winning the title with 15 points.
The boys team scored 40 points for a second-place finish, well ahead of Calais’s 112 points in third, with Orono winning with 20 points.
“The boys were particularly strong with Caden Mattson coming in 3rd overall in Class C,” Coach Todd Eckenfelder said. “Also for the boys, we had runners come in 10th, 11th and 12th place, and more impressive than that was we had five runners under 20 minutes.”
Mattson raced to a 18:19 finish, while Andrew Szewz (19:16.4), Ian Renwick (19:23.4) and Clark Morrison (19:34.9) finished 10th, 11th and 12th. Sean Schweizer finished in 16th place (19:43.8).
The top five finishes count towards the team score but, with not all runners competing for a school team, scores are lower than the sum of the finishes. Varsity runners Oliver Wilson finished 20th (20:21.4) and Nyamh Wolf, 26th (21:08.7).
The Class C North regionals and state championship races will be held at Troy Middle School in Belfast on Saturday, October 20 and Saturday, October 27.