If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the slightest breeze would send Elise Moody-Roberts off course.

At five feet and just 95 pounds, the Cape Elizabeth freshman won every race in which she ran, shattering six course records as the season went on, and finishing first at this year’s Class B state meet in Belfast.

Her time at the state meet, 18:34.5, was better than any other finisher, regardless of class, by nearly one full minute. Jessie and Beth Wilcox of Mt. Ararat finished in just over 19:31.

As the season drew to a close, Moody-Roberts seemed to save her best for last. At the Western Regional, she flew across slick terrain to finish a minute and a half ahead of her nearest competitor.

One week later, in Belfast, Moody-Roberts posted her time on a course that saw fellow runners, and teammates, fall to the ground, crippled by the wet terrain and by heat exhaustion on a warmer-than-average day.

For all of her accomplishments on the trails this season, Elise Moody-Roberts of Cape Elizabeth High School, the daughter of Kim Moody and Dave Roberts, both well-known runners in their own right, is this season’s Lewiston Sun Journal Girls’ High School Cross Country Runner of the Year.

True to form

There was no shock, no surprise, and no spectacle. In fact, at this year’s state meet in Belfast, Ben True of Greely had to hold up because of bad terrain and suspect footing. Even still, the senior from Cumberland managed to blow the 3.1-mile course record out the window, finishing in 15:50.1.

But True didn’t stop there. His next stop was a competitive East Regional in the Foot Locker National Cross Country Championships in New York. In all eight qualified for the National meet in San Diego. Of those eight was True, the race winner. All eight Eastern qualifiers bested last season’s winner’s mark, and the win sent True West to San Diego, where last year he finished ninth.

True is just the second Maine runner to ever qualify twice for the national race in San Diego, and just the ninth overall. While in San Diego, True, who finished ninth last year, took a respectable fifth place finish.

Next year, True will glide through the snow and across the trails of Dartmouth College, but this season, his senior season, will be one to remember for years to come.

For all of his accomplishments, both at the state and at the national level, Ben True of Greely High School is the 2003 Lewiston Sun Journal Boys’ High School Cross Country Runner of the Year.

jpelletier@sunjournal.com

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