The Winslow girls cross country team received strong performances from their top-three runners — Molly Schassberger, Erica Bertolaccini and Audrey Jones — at a season-opening meet on Friday.

Schassberger won the race with a personal best time of 19 minutes, 54.70 seconds.

“We wanted to break 20 minutes and she did,” Winslow coach Christina Bertolaccini said. “It’s exciting because we’re still early in the season.”

Erica Bertolaccini finished second (21:49.43) while Jones was fourth (22:28.51).

“Our top three look good,” Christina Bertolaccini said. We need some four or five runners to step up, though. Autumn Hopkins and Alyssa Wright did well, but we need to get them in a little sooner.”

Christina Bertolaccini added that the boys team also looks strong despite top runner Nick Shuckrow dealing with a slight quad injury.

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“We think it’s a minor injury and that he’ll come out of that by Friday.”

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The Lawrence girls are coping with injuries and not having all their dual-sport athletes available because of other committments in the early going.

“Things have gone OK,” Lawrence coach Sandor Nagy said.

The Bulldogs opened the season at a four-team meet in Farmington on Friday. They didn’t however, have enough runners to score.

Marissa Paquette and Jilli McAllister, both juniors, are also playing soccer and weren’t available to compete. Erzsie Nagy, one of the top distance runners in the state, is out with a hip injury. Sandor Nagy said it could be a few weeks before Erzsie is ready to compete.

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“She’s trying to recover,” he said. “She’s itching to get back out there. It’s tough because with the double roster players, it can get tricky if they don’t show up for races. We’re trying to convince runners who we knew from track to come help us at meets.”

The Lawrence boys, meanwhile, are close to fielding a complete team with the addition of Casey Levasseur. The Bulldogs have four runners competing.

Sophomore Ben Blaisdell anchors the team. He finished 10th overall in the season-opening meet at Mt. Blue last Friday.

“If we can get that fifth guy, we’ll be doing all right,” Lawrence coach Tim Alberts said.

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Madison hosted its annual Bulldog Challenge last Friday. The Challenge, which drew seven Mountain Valley Conference teams, features teams of four, including boys, girls and co-eds. The course is about three kilometers.

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“It’s kind of a fun way to open the season,” Madison coach Brandon Hagopian said. “Everyone had a top boys team and a top girls team. You can’t get official times, but it’s more of a fun meet.”

Madison senior Colby Trenten finished second overall in 10 minutes, 40 seconds.

“It was a great way to start the season,” Hagopian said.

Bill Stewart — 621-5640

bstewart@centralmaine.com

 


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