AUGUSTA — Jason Stevenson said he and Austin Landry had a simple goal: Beat each other. Hannah Despres said she and her teammates had an even simpler goal: To get ahead of Camden Hills runners in front of them.
Both strategies worked as the Maranacook boys and girls teams won the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B titles Saturday morning at Cony High School.
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The Maranacook boys, thanks to Stevenson’s third-place finish and Landry’s fourth-place finish, won with 57 points. The Black Bears placed four runners in the top 15 to beat Lincoln Academy (81).
Camden Hills’ Ben Trapani won the Class B boys title with a time of 17 minutes, 17.5 seconds to help the Windjammers finish third.
“We came in confident we were going to do well, we’ve been running well all season,” said Stevenson, who finished in 17:46.5. Landry finished in 17:46.9. “Austin and I came in with one goal, and that was to beat each other. We ran the entire race together, it was like a half a second different. So that definitely helped us get the win we needed.”
The Maranacook girls, led by Despres’ fourth-place finish, won with 61 points. Camden Hills was second with 91. Abby Hersom of Oceanside won the individual title with a time of 20:49.8.
“My goal was to get ahead of the first Camden girls,” said Despres, who finished with a time of 21:53.6. “Our concern today was the team score and not personal bests.”
Hampden Academy won the Class A girls title with 52 points, followed by Brunswick (65) and Lewiston (97). Mt. Ararat and Mt. Blue followed with 111 points each. Teresa Murphy of Brunswick beat Cony’s Anne Guadalupi down the stretch to win the Class A title in 20:40.4.
Bangor, which placed four runners in the top 20, won the Class A boys title with 72 points. Lewiston was second with 86. Josh Horne won the individual Class A boys title with a time of 17:05.2 to help Mt. Blue finish third. Also for Mt. Blue, Aaron Willingham finished third in 17:07.8 and Dan Lesko was fourth in 17:18.5.
The Maranacook boys won the KVAC B title for the third straight season. Joining Stevenson and Landry in the top 15 were Luca DeAngelis (11th, 18:51.2) and Ethan Harriman (14th, 19:07.5). Also John Parent finished 26th.
The girls joined them to give Rosalea Kimball a pair of champs for the first time in her 10 seasons as Maranacook coach.
“It’s going to be a happy bus ride home,” Kimball said. “I’ve never had both teams win, so that’s pretty exciting.”
Joining Despres in the top 20 for Maranacook were: Erin Guilmet (10th, 22:25.7); Melissa Garand (15th, 23:23.7); Jacyee Greely (16th, 23:25.0); and Taylor Cray (20th, 23:38.9).
“We needed our No. 2 girls to come in and fill that gap and Erin Guilmet stepped in and filled that gap,” Kimball said. “Our seventh runner was 24th in the race, so they all were just really close together.”
In the Class A race, Guadalupi, a freshman at Cony, led almost the entire race before Murphy caught her late in the race. Guadalupi said she has been dealing with some breathing problems and it caught up with her Saturday.
“It kind of just slowed me down,” Guadalupi said. “I don’t feel like I’m in my best shape. It was not a terrible race. I was expecting to be in the lower 20s.”
In the Class A boys race, Erskine’s Erik Dodge finished eighth in 18:33.4 to help the Eagles finish fifth.
Scott Martin — 621-5618
smartin@centralmaine.com
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