Gorham takes the sweep, while Jesse Southard & Halee Phelps pick up individual wins
The boys and girls of Deering, Noble, Westbrook, and Gorham dealt with the same wonderful conditions that the rest of the State did…rain and plenty of mud.
The slow conditions were no match for Jesse Southard who ran to victory in the opening meet of the season. The race started off at a solid clip with a pack of 6 pacing each other through the first mile and a half. At that point, the pack started to break up and Southard, along with Yahya Hussein of Deering, pulled away and battled each other over the last half to a close finish (17:21 and 17:23).
Tyler Jack of Westbrook also turned in a sub 18-minute performance by running 17:57 which was good for 3rd. Gorham came away with the team win by scoring 32 points, only 7 points ahead of Deering at 39. Westbrook rounded out the field by scoring 53.
On the girls side, field hockey transfer Halee Phelps of Westbrook, picked up her first high school cross country victory. Jackie Turner of Gorham, Halee Phelps of Westbrook, and Mel McClure-Chute of Deering ran stride for stride through the first 2 miles, breaking away from the rest of the pack early. Turner led most of the way until the last 500m where Phelps put on an aggressive move to take the lead for good. Phelps came in with a solid time of 21:27, 11 seconds ahead of Turner (21:38). McClure-Chute finished 3rd in a time of 21:53.
The team battle was a very close one. Gorham took the cake scoring 38, while Deering was 1 point back with 39. Westbrook finished 3rd with 43 points, making it a 5 point meet between 1st and 3rd. Noble rounded out the field with 110 points.