News
Ewings Greater Houlton program’s first New England Championship qualifier
Ross just misses qualifying spot
The Houlton/GHCA cross country team capped off their breakout year with some fantastic performances last Saturday at the Maine State Championships in Belfast. For the ladies, despite coming up a bit short in the team scoring, six of seven girls ran their career personal bests and the seventh was just seconds off of her career best.
“As a coach, that’s all I could ever ask for, we showed up and gave it our best and at the end of the day it just wasn’t quite enough,” said Coach Chris Rines. “They all ran a race they can be proud of for the rest of their lives.”
Leading the way was freshman standout Teanne Ewings. For the most part Teanne has had pretty ‘quiet’ races at the front, running alone in most cases. “But on Saturday, she had a race on her hands and she showed up big time,” Rines said.
The Southern Maine champ Alexa Allen of Monmouth gave Ewings a race she hasn’t seen all year and Teanne was able to come out on top placing fourth overall. The number two through sixth runners all stuck tight together through the first two miles.
“It was an amazing sight to see,” added Rines. “Eventually in the
third-mile their pack dissipated slightly, Leanne Ross broke away and was able to catch some scoring runners ahead of her.”
Isabella Ardell, Elena Ardell, and Natalie Johnson all crossed the line within seconds of each other and shortly thereafter was Calli Sylvia coming in as our first displacing scorer.
Another minute later and McKenna Phillips was in and the girls had all finished. Greater Houlton had six girls in the top 30, and Mckenna was 32nd overall.
“This team of girls finished the season as one of the top teams in Maine regardless of class,” Rines said.
When the team scores were combined from Class A, B, and C the Houlton girls placed seventh overall, just one place out from grabbing one of the at-large bids to New Englands.
Teanne ended the Class C race with a fourth place time, but overall in the combined results she finished seventh on the day and is officially the Greater Houlton program’s first New England Championship qualifier.
In another heartbreaking turn of events, senior Daniel Ross ran the final race of his career with a new personal career best time.
“We would later find out when the State compiled the results from Class A, B, and C that Dan missed the New England qualifier cut off by just .75 seconds,” Rines said.
Ross finished fifth overall in Class C and 27th in the combined.
“Dan started his race off much more conservative than a week ago at the regional championship,” explained Rines. “He chose to take a slower pace early on in favor of keeping his place and time in mind knowing a bid to the New England championships was looming.”
Class C Girls Results – http://www.sub5.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/classcgirls.txt
Class C Boys Resutls – http://www.sub5.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/classcboys.txt
Girls A, B, C Combined – http://www.sub5.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/combinedgirls.txt
Boys A, B, C Combined – http://www.sub5.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ne-boys-1.txt