STANDISH — The St. Dom’s girls’ team stuck together Friday during the Western Maine Cross Country Championships at St. Joseph’s College.
Alexandra (Bugsy) Hammerton paced the Saints to the WMC Division II girl’ cross country championship, winning the individual Division II race with a time of 21:13, two seconds ahead of Poland’s Samantha Halmos.
A fellow Knight, Olivia Halmos was third, five seconds behind her teammate, but the Saints had four other runners finish in the top 11 of the division — Sidney Sirois in fifth (21:23), Caroline Gastonguay in eighth, Ella Brown in ninth and Megan D’Alessandro in 11th — to earn the win for St. Dom’s.
“Our girls raced very well,” St. Dom’s coach Josh Brown said. “We had five racers finish in a very tight pack. I think we did very well.”
Their 31-point team total was 34 points better than Wells, which finished in second with 65 points. Poland was third with 78, while Maine Coast Waldorf was fourth, followed by Waynflete and Lake Region.
“The girls were hopeful,” Poland assistant coach Ray Lafreniere said. “Our one, two, three runners were up there. Our four and five were a little further back. With two divisions it’s hard to tell, so we are hopeful, and next week is regionals.”
York won the Division I girls’ championship with 47 points, 11 points ahead of Falmouth. Cape Elizabeth finished third with 62, Yarmouth fourth with 114 and Kennebunk rounded out the top five with 127 points.
Gray-New Gloucester finished eighth in the girls’ Division I race with 240 points. In the boys’ race, they were tied in eighth with 209 points.
Patriots coach Adam Zukowski said he was using the WMC race to get ready for regionals next week.
“We used this a race strategy to see who we have to keep up with for next week,” Zukowski said.
He also said Parker Morse had a solid race, with a time of 18:35 — 17th in the Division I boys’ race.
Malaika Pasch won the Division I and overall girls’ race with a time of 19:11, 23 seconds ahead of Louise Holway of Kennebunk. Kathryn Miller of York, finished third with a time of 19:48. Emily Carty of Fryeburg finished in fourth, while Grace Reynolds of York placed fifth.
Pasch actually took a wrong turn at the beginning of the race.
“It was a quarter-mile before the mile mark, I turned right before I was supposed to run straight,” Pasch said. “The girls told me to quickly turn around.”
She said she only lost a little bit of ground on the mishap.
In the boys’ Division II race, Poland just beat out St. Dom’s for fourth in the team race with 121 points to the Saints’ 123 points. Wells finished in first with 32 points, with Maine Coast Waldorf in second with 57. Waynflete finished in third with 69 points.
Poland’s top runner was Vincent Russo, who finished 11th with a time of 18:38, 12 seconds ahead of the Saints’ Jose Torres who finished in 12th. Mark D’Alessandro of St. Dom’s finished in 15th, while his teammate Robert Shelley finished 21st with a time of 19:36, 17 seconds ahead of Gaeb Bouchard of Poland.
“The boys’ team raced first and we did very well,” Brown said. “The first two runners were a little bit ahead of of our expectations. Everybody else put in a good effort…we are certainly happy with the performance.”
The top five were Tucker Pierce of Maine Coast Waldorf, who won with a time of 17:08, Mitch Libby and Wesley Moddy of Wells, Willson Moorse of Waynflete and Dylan Wu of Maine Coast Waldorf.
Jeremiah Sands of Falmouth won the overall and Division I race with a time of 16:37, seven seconds ahead of Henry Jaques. John Auer of Falmouth finished in third, two seconds ahead of teammate Conner Piers. Yacob Olins of Freeport finished in fifth.
“I like downhills, I like to push those downhills so it’s not as bad,” Sands said. Henry is tough, if it came to a straightaway, I don’t think I could of had him. He’s a good competitor, those downhills, I made them count.”
Falmouth ran away with the team championship with 27 points. Freeport finished in second with 63, Cape Elizabeth was in third with 108, and Greely had 120, five points ahead of York in fifth.
nfournier@sunjournal.com
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