AUGUSTA – Even though Eben Hodgkins of Erskine Academy competes in Class B, he was one of the runners Messalonskee’s Harlow Ladd was concerned about Saturday morning at the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference cross country championships.
As it turned out, both Ladd and Hodgkins were champions.
Ladd won the Class A race in 17 minutes, 14 seconds, while Hodgkins finished second overall and won the Class B title in 17:31.5.
The girls’ individual winners were Brunswick’s Kathleen McMahon (19:55.9) in Class A and Camden Hills freshman Brittany Bowman (20:46.6) in Class B.
Maranacook junior Abby Mace, who won the Class B title handily as a freshman and sophomore, did not compete because of an injury.
Mt. Ararat swept the Class A team titles and turned in a dominant performance in the girls’ race, with five runners in the top 10 and seven in the top 18. Emma Wood (20:43.4), Kate Spies (21:15.8) and Emilia McGrath (21:22.1) placed second through fourth to lead the Eagles to an easy victory over Brunswick, 27-75.
The Class A boys’ race was much closer, but Mt. Ararat (56) put three runners in the top 10 to beat Mt. Blue (70) and Edward Little (75). Andy Reifman-Packett paced the Eagles with a third-place finish in 17:39.8.
Hampden Academy swept the Class B titles, with Winslow finishing second in both the girls’ and boys’ races.
Mt. Blue finished second in Class A boys and third in Class A girls. In the Class B boys’ race, Maranacook placed third and Erskine Academy came in fourth.
The boys ran first, and Ladd had a couple strategies prepared. One of them involved the weather.
“I was just thinking, ‘It’s wet, it’s going to slow the other runners down, too, so I can use this to my advantage — run on my toes so I wouldn’t slip as much,’” Ladd said.
Ladd also tried a different mental approach, and it paid off. He finished 25.6 seconds ahead of runner-up Faisal Noor of Edward Little.
“I’ve been losing races lately,” Ladd said. “In those races, I’ve been letting other people set the pace in the beginning. So (my coach) just told me to go out and run my race.
“We’ve been killing each other with workouts lately, so we started tapering off today and I just felt like a different runner. Amazing.”
Hodgkins also factored the weather into his approach, and he beat Hampden Academy’s Evan Piccirillo by 11 seconds. Waterville’s Jeff Hale took third in 18:04.9.
“It was pretty messy through the first mile,” Hodgkins said. “But once you got up through the hills, the course was nice. You just sort of roll with what the weather gives you and hope for the best.”
Winslow’s Nick Shuckrow placed fifth in Class B in 18:35.2 and was followed by teammates Mike McCann (10th) and Shawn Willette (12th).
The Maranacook boys were led by Evan Vincent (seventh), Kelby Mace (eighth) and Taylor Watson (11th).
The Mt. Blue boys had five runners in the top 18 in Class A, including Jaron Jones (ninth), Brody Hines (12th) and Jonah Jones (14th).
Winslow sophomore Molly Schassberger was runner-up in the Class B girls’ race, finishing in 21:56.7.
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