Bryce Murdick won the boys’ race with a time of 16:49, ten seconds ahead of Mitch Morris of Cape Elizabeth. Luke Laverdiere of Yarmouth finished in the third while Spencer Brown of Falmouth and Kyle Kennedy of Cape Elizabeth rounded out the top five.

“I felt good, I thought it was a good day so I went for it pretty hard,” Murdick said.

Mira Wyman won the girls’ race with a time of 20:17, topping Grace Cowles of Yarmouth by nine seconds. Hannah Austin of North Yarmouth Academy came in third with a time of 20:33. Olivia Skillings of Merriconeag came in ten seconds behind Austin while Sam Feenstra of Cape Elizabeth came in fifth.

Wyman broke away from the pack about two-thirds of the way through the race.

“Around the second mile or so, I really felt good and started to push and separate from the group,”Wyman said of her third win of the season.  

Their head coach thought today was a good test for the upcoming  coming weeks.

“They were good times on a challenging course, so we are happy with the times,” Falmouth coach Jorma Kurry said. “We were trying to get ready for the big meets coming up and definitely pleased with the results today.”

In the team competition the Yachtsmen won the boys’ event with 41 points, with three runners in the top ten. York came in second (87), with Greely right behind the Wildcats (95). Cape Elizabeth (132) was in fourth. Chandler Vincent’s seventh-place finish and Eric Brobst’s 17th-place finish helped Freeport finished in fifth (141).

Gray-New Gloucester came in eighth (227) on the back of Ben Garcia’s 26th-place finish, while Austin Cross (18:52) and Luke Nickerson (18:54) finished 38th and 39th.

“Today, it was kind of hit or miss today,” Gray-New Gloucester coach Adam Zukowski said. “We were really getting ready for next week.”

Zukowski used this meet as a learning experience for next week at regionals.

“I think getting used to the bigger meet, the different start obviously from a three- or four-team meet,” Zukowski said.  

Poland placed 14th in the 15-team boys’ field. Chris Lobley was the Knights’ top finisher in 61st place with a time of 20:07.

“We ran where we thought we would,” Poland co-coach Ray Lafreniere said. For the boys’ race, we had five of our top seven ran faster than they have before. One guy took four minutes off his time which is pretty good. In the girls’ race we had four out of six that ran faster on this course than before. It’s a building year. Two-thirds of our kids are freshmen and sophomores.”

Poland finished 13th in the girls’ team event with Samantha Halmos finishing 31st overall.

On the girls’ side, Yarmouth came away the victor with 54 points as they had two runners other than Cowles in the top 10. Abigail Hamilton finished in sixth with a time of 21:03, and Anneka Murrin took ninth place, crossing the line at 21:10. Cape came in second (61), followed by  Falmouth (105), York (115) and Waynflete (133).

“Greely decided to hold out their top three runners for whatever reason, I think it was coaching strategy,” Yarmouth coach Bob Morse said. “We focused on Cape and we brought the girls back together and said our goal was to beat the Cape girls. Greely, if you put them in the mix, it’s a whole different race. I am pleased how well (we) did, they ran as a team.”

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