BELFAST, Maine — Sam Nishi has enjoyed his autumn trip north to midcoast Maine each of the last four years, because the Maine Cross Country Festival of Champions held at the Troy Howard Middle School has provided him an annual opportunity to post a fast time.
“My freshman year was the first time we came up here and it kind of started a tradition,” said Nishi, a senior from Harwood Union High School in South Duxbury, Vermont. “We all love coming up here because you get to race against different people and they’re all nice and welcoming. It’s a great meet.”
Nishi used his final appearance in the state’s biggest cross country meet to accomplish two goals — post the fastest time among 864 finishers and break a 33-year-old school record for a 5-kilometer cross country race.
“Coming into it I wanted to have a really good race because it’s the fastest course we run on all year and I had a good chance of breaking the school record,” said Nishi, whose winning time of 15 minutes, 50.48 seconds eclipsed the previous Harwood Union standard for the 3.1-mile distance of 15:54 set in 1981.
Nishi took the lead with approximately a half-mile remaining from runner-up Sean Laverty of Cumberland, Rhode Island, and went on to win by 3.62 seconds after finishing fourth a year ago,
“I hadn’t really raced up to where I wanted to be the first few races of the season,” he said, “so I went out hard. I wasn’t quite where I wanted to be at the start, but I worked my way up and got up with the leaders by Mile 1 and from there I just ran with them.”
Laverty, a junior whose triplet sister Amy won the girls race, led Cumberland to its fifth boys title in the festival’s 13-year history. The Rhode Island squad finished with 135 points to edge runner-up Scarborough (144) and third-place Falmouth (148) among the 65 scoring boys teams.
Laverty’s time of 15:54.10 was his personal best for the distance by more than 20 seconds.
“I knew I wanted to go out fast and I went through the first mile in 4:51, which was a little faster than I wanted but I was feeling good,” he said. “The first two kids in front of me fell and I took the opportunity to go by them, and after that I just kept moving.”
The race began with a sizable pack that included Aaron Willingham and Dan Lesk of Mt. Blue of Farmington and Lewiston teammates Isaiah Harris and Osman Doorow.
But that group eventually was pared to Nishi and Laverty, who dueled until the final stages of the race.
“It was at the top of the roller coaster hills probably about 2½ miles in that (Nishi) passed me,” said Laverty. “I tried to stay with him but when we got to the bottom of the hill with about 400 (meters) to go, he took off.”
Jacob Terry, a senior who finished six seconds behind Laverty in 16:00.32, propelled Scarborough to its third-place finish, while Falmouth was led by seniors Bryce Murdick and Spencer Brown, who crossed the finish line together in 18th and 19th places.
Hampden Academy was the top Eastern Maine team in the field, finishing fourth with 239 points behind sophomore Paul Casavant’s 12th-place effort, closely followed by senior Caleb Lord in 15th.
Massabesic of Waterboro also scored 239 points, but Hampden won the tiebreaker for fourth place thanks to a better finish by its sixth-fastest runner, senior Justin St. Peter.
Ranking fourth through 10th among individual finishers were Mitch Morris of Cape Elizabeth, Lewiston’s Harris, Willingham and Lesko of Mt. Blue, Kyle Kennedy of Cape Elizabeth, Harrison Knowlton of Leavitt of Turner Center and Christopher Walfield of Morse of Bath.
