BELFAST – Things didn’t start so well for Harlow Ladd on Saturday.
The Messalonskee junior came into the event as the heavy favorite, but experienced cramps near the start of the race. Somehow he pushed through the pain to win going away and captured the Class A East Regional cross country individual title.
Mt. Ararat repeated its achievement in last weekend’s KVAC race by sweeping both the boys’ and girls’ team races. The boys held off Mt. Blue for the second week in a row, while Brunswick earned runner-up status on the girls’ side. Brunswick’s Katie McMahon won the girls’ individual crown.
Seconds after the gun sounding the start of the boys’ race was fired, Harlow began feeling a sharp pain.
“About 100 meters in,” he said, “I had the worst cramp in the world right in my chest. It was the first time I wanted to walk in a race.”
No matter what he tried, the cramping wouldn’t go away. As he approached the midpoint of the race on an uphill meadow area with the wind whipping across the field, Cony’s Will Lundquist was following by about 20 yards and appeared to be much stronger than Ladd.
“Running up the hill,” Ladd said of battling the wind, “it was reduced to a crawl.”
As the duo ducked into the woods, Ladd reflected on a promise he needed to make good on.
“I promised my girlfriend I was going to win,” Ladd said with a smile. “So I had to do it.”
When Ladd came out of the woods to begin the homestretch, he had increased his lead to 40 yards and ended up crossing the finish line in a time of 16 minutes, 30 seconds. Lundquist was the runner-up, coming across 10 seconds later. Mt. Ararat’s Andy Reifman-Packett was third.
Top local finishers were Edward Little’s Hussein Mohamed and Faisal Noor, who came in fourth and fifth, respectively, while Mt. Blue’s Jaron Jones was sixth with teammates Jonah Jones and Brody Hines finishing ninth and 11th. Hussein Ibrahim finished 12th to lead Lewiston.
The Mt. Blue boys were impressive for the second week in a row. The Cougars top three runners all came close to turning in season-best times, while their next three, sophomores Sully Jackson and Justin Tracy along with junior Alex Chandler, all turned in personal bests.
Mt. Blue coach Kelley Cullenberg couldn’t say enough about the latter three runners.
“They are the type of kids if you dangle a carrot in front of them, they’ll die trying,” she said.
Edward Little finished third and qualified for next weekend’s state meet along with Mt. Blue and Lewiston, which came in fourth.
Like Ladd, McMahon experienced physical problems of her own Saturday. She led from almost start to finish and was never really tested the last two miles. However, the Brunswick junior pulled up lame with an apparent injury to her right foot seconds after crossing the finish line in a time of 19:11. She was attended to on the ground, before being helped off the course minus her running shoe.
Mt. Blue placed third and EL sixth to qualify for the state meet.
All seven Mt. Ararat runners turned in top 25 finishes to dominate the girls’ race.
“It’s pretty awesome,” said Mt. Ararat coach Diane Fournier of the Eagles’ double win. “It hasn’t happened for a very long time. On the guys’ race, Peter Burtt didn’t even run in the varsity race last weekend. He had such a great race we put him in today.”
Burtt finished 24th Saturday.
“It’s a very strong seven,” Fournier said of the girls.
They’ll need to be even stronger if they hope to challenge favored Cheverus next Saturday in Belfast.
“It’ll be tough,” said Fournier. “They’re just really hard to beat. They’ll have to have a bad day and we’ll need to have a good one, but it’s happened before. It’s that little factor called luck.”
John Bapst won the girls’ Class B team title with Old Town’s Dacie Manion (19:03) finishing first. On the boys’ side, Caribou was the top team with Ellsworth freshman Dan Curts (16:26) taking top honors as well as turning in the top time of the day.
In the Class C girls’ race, it was Washburn freshman Carsyn Koch (20:14) atop the podium with Lee Academy winning the team crown. Orono’s Alex Bulteel (16:43) was the top male finisher with Bangor Christian winning the team title.
dst.hilaire@sunjournal.com
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